


Bright Flame

by mathildia



Series: Tales from Netheredge [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age of Sail, Betrayal, Bondage, Brothels, Cages, Captivity, Child Abuse, Colonialism, Dubious Consent, Explosives, Flogging, Hurt/Comfort, Impotence, Infidelity, M/M, Naval Discipline, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Paramilitary, Pining, Prostitution, Rape Aftermath, Repression, Romance, Sex Pollen, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Slow Burn, Spitroasting, Tooth Pulling, Torture, Trauma, Underage Prostitution, Whump, rape as punishment, sodomy, state sanctioned homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21622381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathildia/pseuds/mathildia
Summary: A ship's pillow boy tries to help a captured freedom fighter and their fates become entwined in a hopeless situation. An epic romance.Fry leans into door frame, softening further. Something about this situation is amusing him. “I’ve already told you I don’t explain myself to whores.” The smile on Fry’s face widens, he reaches out and touches Galen’s cheek, with an odd affection.”You really needn’t worry,” he says. “He won’t be there while you’re working. I have another location in mind for him to perform his duties. I’m going to have him lashed to the mast. For the use of all. Even you. You should come up on deck and join us. If you enjoy performing like a man as well as like a slut.” He finishes with a soft pat on Galen’s cheek.Please read the tags.COMPLETE
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Tales from Netheredge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566223
Comments: 97
Kudos: 185





	1. Aboard Bright Flame 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can read the stories in this series in any order. They all take place in the same world, but the connections between them are minimal.
> 
> https://mathildia.tumblr.com/

The weather has been good, the seas fair. Bright Flame, part of the great naval fleet of the Callisto Empire, is making excellent time out of Pithiya, and should reach her destination, The Isle of Stars, in only two more weeks.

Their cargo is dried fruits and sweet wine, which will be traded for furs and tallow. And they carry gold and gemstones, which will be exchanged for magical items, mostly transference orbs, that can only be made in the North.

On board the ship, Galen’s routine is familiar. It rarely changes from voyage to voyage. He has served as a pillow boy on a Callisto vessel many times before. A decade ago, when he’d first worked a ship, he’d truly been a boy. Now, he’s 25, and so has been a man long enough that sometimes being called a pillow boy feels strange and jarring. But when a man gets on his knees, bends over for silver, he remains a boy to most.

Galen is not a sailor, not part of the navy. He has no deck duties. His tasks begin at twilight, when most of the crew’s work is done. He goes first to the galley, where the men without watches eat supper. He walks the tables and prepares a lists of which sailors require his services, designs a timetable while he eats his own meal, and then returns to the pillow room to begin work, finishing, usually, around dawn. When he’s done, he takes a walk on deck, sees the sun come up, eats another meal, then returns to the pillow room to sleep in the same bed where he works, which is comfortable. Bright Flame’s pillow room is small, but it has a porthole, rich coloured drapes and a variety of cushions and silks.

Bright Flame is an old ship. Since Emperor Queece, Callisto ships are no longer made with pillow rooms. The practice of ships taking pillow boys is going out of fashion, is rumoured to soon be made illegal. This, Galen is sure, will be his last sea voyage.

On the tenth day of the voyage, Galen wakes in the evening, and while the feel of the ship rolling under him, and the soft purple twilight outside the cabin window are familiar, something is different about the room. He knows that before he sits up. And when he does sit up he sees another man is in the cabin. 

There have, of course, been many other men in this cabin, but this man is not in his bed, he is on the floor. And not simply on the floor but inside a large iron cage, a cage that has been set under Galen’s small porthole while he slept. The cage takes up most of the floor space in the small room. It completely covers the single rug, cushions have been tossed aside to make room for it. 

Galen sits up and peers at the cage, at the man. He is asleep, or lying down at least. Although, with the cage being the shape it is, it would be hard for a grown man to do much else in it. He’s curled up, his face hidden, and he’s naked, all of him that Galen can see. He’s well muscled and he’s badly bruised, grazed and bloody in places. He’s been beaten. Beaten and locked in a cage in Galen’s pillow room.

 _Is he a prisoner?_

There is a perfectly adequate brig on Bright Flame. 

Galen slips from his bed and moves nearer. When he’s closer he can see the man’s wounds more easily. He’s seen men beaten before. The bruises all over his ribs and thighs are from booted kicks. The ones on his arms look more like the impact of fists. 

He’s been flogged too. Not the worst Galen has seen on this ship, but his back is criss-crossed with red welts. Fresh ones. 

Galen walks quietly around the cage so he can see the prisoner’s face. And when he does, he pauses, surprised by the sight. The man is handsome, somewhere in his 30s. His face is well made, strong. His nose is large and his jaw is wide and blunt. His hair is dark, tangled and reaching to his shoulders. There are more bruises on his face, a black eye, a split over his cheekbone.

And he is breathing, he is alive.

He is sleeping.

_Why is this prisoner sleeping in a cage in his cabin?_

_Is the brig full?_

Surely Galen would have heard if anything so dramatic had happened aboard Bright Flame that the entire brig was full. 

But something had happened during the day while Galen was sleeping. He remembers being woken to shouts and running, a cry of, ‘on deck, come and see it’. Galen turned over and went back to sleep. He's not a sailor. He doesn’t do deck duties.

He’d been half aware of some kind of drama, but if anyone had required him they would have knocked on his door.

But that commotion, could that have been caused by the arrival of this man? Was that when he was dragged on deck. Was that excitement men running to watch his flogging, join in with his beating?

Galen decides he needs to find out, and before he starts work for the evening.

He takes another look at the sleeping, caged man, before turning away and rooting out his overshirt and breeches. He pulls them on, steps into his boots and leaves the cabin. It’s almost time to start work, but instead of going to the galley, Galen goes, first, to Captain Fry’s cabin. 

During the voyage, Galen has spent several nights with Captain Fry. Pillow boys have been part of Calistan crews for centuries and some of the rules surrounding the practise are ancient. One rule that Galen has found on every ship he’s ever worked is that it is the Captain’s prerogative to enlist his services for the entire night whenever he desires them. 

Fry was a Queece loyalist, and no fan of the tradition of pillow boys. His attitude to Galen’s presence and profession had made it surprising when he turned out not only to know about this rule, but also to request it adhered to.

When Fry wanted somewhere to stick his dick, Galen had been there to oblige. 

This is not the first time Galen has found himself in service of a man who is disgusted with himself over it. That disgust often manifests as rough sex, slaps, fists in hair, name calling. And this is the case with Fry, who seems to need to force Galen to choke on his dick in order to complete. And even after he’s done, hits Galen in the face and calls him a disgusting whore. 

But none of this is new territory. And Galen learnt long ago how to take a blow, fake being choked.

But tonight, that’s not why he’s here. This is the first time Galen has knocked on the door of Fry’s cabin, uninvited.

Fry opens his cabin door. He looks tired. He spends a moment gazing at Galen, perhaps and image of Galen on his knees, choking on dick crosses the Captain’s mind before he barks out, “Yes, boy?”

Pillow boys are no longer legally sailors, no longer allowed to wear the naval uniforms of the Calisto Empire. When Captain Fry looks at him in Galen civilian clothes, he feels unkempt and lowly. But he draws himself up. This matter needs resolving. “Captain Fry, sir. There is a man in the pillow room. A prisoner in a cage. I require some kind of explanation.”

“I don’t need to explain anything to a ship’s diseased whore. Please leave I have real work to do.” Fry makes to close the door in Galen’s face, but Galen reaches out and blocks it with an arm. Fry narrows his eyes at this. “You will leave now, boy,” Fry grinds out, “or I will have you flogged.” 

“Please, Captain Fry. The men who require my services also use that room. They will surely ask why there is a prisoner in there.”

“They all know why he’s there. He’s not an ordinary prisoner. He’s a whore. Like you. Another whore for the ship. That’s why you’re sharing a room. You should be pleased. You’ll find yourself with half the work for the same pay.” 

“He’s a whore? I’m sorry, Captain. I don’t understand?” 

Fry leans into door frame, softening further. Something about this situation is amusing him. “I’ve already told you I don’t explain myself to whores.” The smile Fry’s face widens, he reaches out and touches Galen’s cheek, with an odd affection.”You really needn’t worry,” he says. “He won’t be there while you’re working. I have another location in mind for him to perform his duties. I’m going to have him lashed to the mast. For the use of all. Even you. You should come up on deck and join us. If you enjoy performing like a man as well as like a slut.” He finishes with a soft pat on Galen’s cheek.

Galen isn’t sure what all of this means, but he says, “I see, Captain.”

“Now get off to the galley. If I am to suffer a creature like you on this tub, I will at least have him perform his duties.” 

And this time, when Fry slams the door, Galen lets him. 

*

When Galen returns to his room to prepare for the night’s work, the man is gone. The cage is empty, the door open. 

Galen walks over to it and, exploratively, bends over the top of it. It’s a good height. Despite Captain Fry’s assumptions, not every man who comes to see Galen wants his mouth or his hole. Some want his dick. Perhaps if one of them comes to his room tonight, he will take them bent over this cage. 

But the four sailors he sees that night are all sodomisers, rough careless ones at that. It’s the most tiring kind of night when that’s all that’s required. After the first two it’s all bruising and burning, no way to find pleasure in it. 

As the third mounts him, he thinks of the man from the cage. Fry had made it clear what was to be happening to him tonight. Is he taking his third too, his tenth? And he will be bound, being forced. Raped. He won’t, unless he is truly a whore, have the knowledge of how to do that without injury. Galen shudders under the man inside him, which earns him a moan of pleasure, and a soft slap to his flank.

*

When Galen is done for the night, he finds himself on deck. He isn’t sure how he made the decision to go an investigate the fate of the man in the cage. But there he finds himself, amongst the shouts of drunken sailors. It’s dark and wild, the atmosphere harder, darker than he’s ever known aboard Fry’s tight ship. A few men greet him, slap his shoulder and cheerfully call him, ‘whore’. A wooden cup full of rum is pressed into his hand. 

This is a party. And he is a welcome guest.

In front of him, most of the sailors are in a wide circle. He can guess what’s in the centre of it. 

Pushing through the crowd, he sees him. The prisoner. His bare skin is glowing in the firelight. Not lashed to the mast but to a barrel. Bent right over it and roped into place. Still naked, he’s the centre piece of this evening gathering. 

And there’s a sailor fucking him. From where Galen is standing, directly behind them, the sailor is most of what he can see. Breeches pooled at his ankles, moving fast, close to finishing. Galen can’t see either of their faces, he can see others though. Faces from the crew he recognises. Some are casual, watching this rape as if it’s barely enough to hold their attention, drinking or chatting. Others have thrilled expressions, eyes lit up with pleasure, staring hungrily and what is before them. When Galen notices the knot of men standing over the left, he realises with a sickening horror, that they are a queue.

On the other side of the circle is Fry, sitting on a high wooden chair, a drink in his hand, he watches the prisoner, watches and smiles to himself.

For all the grotesqueness of it, Galen can’t look away. He finds himself moving around the edge of the crowd. He isn’t sure why, what he’s searching for until he finds it. He moves around until he’s opposite the point where he began. And he can see the prisoner’s face. 

That handsome face. His dark hair tumbles over it, hangs down over his cheeks and in his eyes. But his eyes are open, open and defiant, staring past Galen, past all of them, looking only at Fry, meeting his eyes steadily as the thrusts of the sailor behind him knock him rhythmically across the barrel. There’s something noble about that. The way he’s holding his dignity together, even as he’s being used like this. 

The prisoner’s wrists are drawn out in front of him with rope. His arms are thick with muscle. He’s strong. Strong enough that he could probably take a few of them down if he was free. He’s a fighter, a warrior. And he’s being treated cruelly even by Fry’s vicious standards. 

_Who is he? Who is he and what has he done to earn this kind of treatment._

The sailor mounting the prisoner jerks and finishes. He withdraws and the prisoner turns his head, glancing behind him as the sailor steps back, a satisfied smile on a face that’s cut with a scar. Galen recognises that sailor now. That same sailor fucked him earlier. Fucked him and then came up on deck and raped the prisoner. Like Galen wasn’t enough. Like if he had been, he might have saved the prisoner from this.

Galen swallows. His logic doesn’t make sense, but this makes him prickle with shame. 

As the sailor steps away from him, the prisoner turns back to look at Captain Fry with a steady gaze. Head up, expression fixed and defiant. Like he’s daring Fry to abuse him further. 

Fry looks past him to the sailor. “How was he, Jackson?” he says lightly.

The sailor leers. “A dream, sir. As tight as a virgin.”

“How nice,” Fry replies. “Although, sad to say, he won’t be soon. And how was it for you, filth?”

The prisoner spits on the deck. “Tedious,” he says, in a voice that is rough. Galen thinks it’s a voice that, for all his defiance now, has been screaming, has already broken once today. 

“Such a shame. Perhaps we can make things more entertaining for you. I notice our other whore is here. What brings you above deck, boy? Curious about your new bed fellow?”

From somewhere in the crowd a voice shouts. “I can get another barrel.”

Galen freezes. Horror struck at the idea of being treated the same way as the prisoner. Unable to move or speak for a moment until Fry says, “Oh no. This treatment is for our most special guest. We couldn’t possibly treat our own ship’s boy this way.” Galen manages to breathe again, as Fry turns his attention to the prisoner, still staring at the Captain, eyes burning with contempt. Fry says, “But we’re neglecting you. You ought to be the centre of attention, this evening. And I hope, every evening for the rest of your short life.” He pauses as if thinking, then continues. “Boy, how about you fuck this thing for us,” and it takes Galen a second to realise the Captain is talking to him again. 

“Me, sir?” Galen splutters out.

“Yes, you. Would you enjoy the novelty of being the user rather than the used. I’d enjoy very much to see this creature degraded by being fucked by filth like you.”

Galen finds himself shaking his head before he’s even thought about the consequences of refusing. “No. No, sir,” he says. “I cannot.”

“I am your captain,” says Fry, calmly. “I could order you do it.”

“You could sir.”

“I could have you flogged if you refuse me.”

“Yes sir.” Galen manages, feeling the presence of angry, drunk sailors all around him. Again he’s frozen, waiting to see what will happen. He’s been on boats long enough to know he ought to be scared of the lash. Especially a lashing from a tyrant like Fry. Men have died from such treatment. Fry’s enforcer is heavy handed and Fry’s sentences are brutal. But he waits to see what Fry says, isn’t sure what he’ll do if he has to take a lashing or fuck this prisoner.

But once again, he is rescued by Fry saying, “But I won’t do that tonight. Next time though. Now, get below. This is no place for a creature like you.”

*

Galen collects some hard biscuit and water from the galley and goes back to the pillow room. It’s quite some time before the prisoner is returned to his cage.

He’s dragged in by two men. He seems exhausted. He’s not the defiant creature Galen saw up on deck. He’s broken. There’s no fight in him. They shove him into the cage and lock it, taking the key with them. As they leave, one of them winks at Galen and says, “Don’t look like that, we cleaned him.”

He does looks clean, Galen thinks as he glances over. He also looks like he taken a fresh beating.

They stare at each other.

The prisoner speaks first. His voice is a croak, but he says, “Is anyone going to explain why my gaoler is a fucking doxy?”

“I’m not a gaoler,” says Galen. “I’m a pillow boy.”

“So that’s what he meant, on deck.” The man is speaking slowly, thinking, “fucked by you, something like you, because you’re a whore. I’m surprised Fry would take a pillow boy.”

Galen shrugs. “He didn’t. Volent did, contracted me before he died.”

The prisoner’s bruised faces moves as if this interests him. “Volent was meant to Captain this ship?” 

“Yes,” says Galen.

The prisoner nods at this small fact, but he doesn’t ask any more about it. Instead he says, “If you are a pillow boy why are you in the brig?

“This isn’t the brig,” says Galen. “Look at it. This is the pillow room. “

“Your whoring room?”

“I suppose so. Captain Fry tells me you’re another whore. So you’re sleeping in here when you’re not being used.” 

The prisoner nods, knowingly. “Fry’s joke then. Us together. The worst things on his ship.”

“Yeah,” says Galen. “I don’t like it anymore than you do.”

The prisoner smiles. Galen watches the cautious movement of it. His bottom lip is split. “I didn’t say I didn’t like this,” he says. “This room is nicer than the brig and the company’s far better.” 

This easy charm surprises Galen. There is something incredible about this man, that he can be as affable as this after what he’s just been through. And while he’s naked, locked in a cage. 

Again Galen wonders who he could possibly be. “I’m Galen,” says Galen. 

“Cole,” says the prisoner. “Do you think you could get me some water.”

“They didn’t give you any water?”

“No. I’m sure they will eventually. As Fry doesn’t want me to die yet. But it’s been a while since they remembered I need water to stay alive.”

Galen crosses to his bed and finds the canteen he keeps there and brings it over, passes it through the bars.

Cole takes it with a hand that has every knuckle bruised and bloody. He thanks Galen and drinks for a long time. When he’s done, his voice sounds far less scratchy when he says, “Galen, can I ask, I want to ask, did you enjoy watching Fry’s men rape me?”

Galen startles at this question. “No. Fry’s an animal.”

“Yet you came to see it.”

“Yes,” says Galen, what else is there to say. He did. 

“But you refused Fry when he told you to fuck me. That was noble. Although after that many it would have made no difference to me if you had.”

Galen shrugs. “It would have made a difference to me,” he says.


	2. Aboard Bright Flame 2

The next few days with Cole in his cabin pass the same as the first. Galen has his routine and Cole has another. When Galen is in the galley, Cole is taken on deck. Galen takes the men he needs to take for the night, Cole is forced to take his. When they are both together, Cole is strangely charming, Galen gives him water and biscuit and both of them sleep feet away from each other. 

But each time Galen sees Cole he is weaker. This treatment will kill him in weeks. That is, Galen is sure, the plan.

Galen does not venture up on deck again when Cole is there. He doesn’t want Fry to order he join in with the abuse of Cole. But, more than that, he doesn’t want Cole to see him there. He doesn’t want Cole to think he enjoys the spectacle of his debasement. 

One morning, when Cole is dragged in and slung back into the cage he seems a little different. He’s still bruised and bloody. Again, he has fresh marks on his body. But he seems looser somehow, his body is soft and relaxed.

He looks up at Galen. “Oh,” he says with a smile. “It’s you.”

“Yes,” says Galen, moving closer. “Are you okay.”

“I suppose,” says Cole. “They gave me something tonight. Made me like it.”

Galen is close enough now that he can smell it. Tiger’s eye. They’d used it in his training house, but Galen hadn’t smelt that for years. He nods at Cole. “I’ll get you some water. And eat some biscuit if you can.”

“I don’t want biscuit. I want to kiss you,” says Cole, dreamily. “Please. Galen, you’re so beautiful.”

Galen catches his breath at that. Realising how much he wants to kiss Cole too. His dick twitches at the way Cole is looking at him with those big blue eyes, his pupils shot wide by the drug. It’s hard to believe those are the same eyes he uses to drill hate into Fry’s soul even while Fry is having him gang raped in front of a baying crowd. Galen thinks then of how Cole must have been tonight, doped on Tiger’s Eye, lashed to that barrel, squirming and begging to be touched, to be used. The thought of it twists inside him, hot and horrifying. He makes himself say, “It’s the Tiger’s Eye. It’ll wear off soon. If you eat the biscuit it will make you vomit and then you’ll feel better.”

But Cole barely hears him. “Will you kiss me, Galen?” he says again. “I need it.” He’s writhing in the cage, the way his hips are moving. “Please kiss me, Galen. You’re so beautiful. I never saw anyone as beautiful as you.”

_How much did they given him?_

Galen swallows. He can’t keep resisting this. “If you eat your biscuit, I’ll kiss you,” he says.

“Kiss me first and I’ll eat the biscuit. Kiss me and I’ll do what you want. I’ll do whatever you want. Do you want me, Galen? I want you.”

Holding the biscuit in his hand, Galen crouches beside the cage. Cole is pressing up against the bars, trying to get to Galen, trying to touch him. Galen looks at Cole’s swollen lips. He dips his head and kisses Cole. Just once and very briefly, but it sends a spark through him from his mouth to his groin. “There,” he says, “now please. Eat the biscuit.” He holds it up.

“I didn’t mean kiss me like that,” Cole slurs. “I want more than that. Put your tongue in my mouth.”

“That’s all your getting until you eat this.”

“Even that made me hard.”

Galen looks through the bars at Cole’s dick, which is, indeed, flush against his belly.

Cole grins, seeing him looking. “You can bet I didn’t get hard when any of those fuckers on deck kissed me. Only you.” But he takes the biscuit Cole is holding and bites into it.

“They kiss you up there? That’s what they’re doing?”

“No,” Cole says, chewing. “You know what they do. I hate it, but I like it with the Tiger’s Eye. I want you to do it. It would be different with you. Better. I want you to fuck me before it wears off.” Cole moves again, arching his back for sex. It’s revolting what the drug is doing to him, but Galen can’t help but stare. His skin prickling all over. 

That’s when he smells it. Not the Tiger’s Eye. Something else. Something that makes him freeze up with a far darker horror. What Galen smells as Cole lifts his arse in air, is distinct smell of infection. 

“Cole?” he says. 

But Cole is still gone, just whispers again, “Kiss me again.”

Galen makes himself shake his head. Focuses on that other smell of rot and looks at Cole carefully, trying to find the source of it. But he thinks he knows. They’ve been tearing him, driving into his body again and again. Galen feels sick to think of it. It’s his hole. There’s a wide torn wound there that’s infected now. Perhaps that was why they had to give him Tiger’s Eye. Damaged like that he wouldn’t be able to relax his body without it.

“Cole,” Galen says carefully, crouching down beside the cage, looking at the mess of him. He can see it now. A slick of dirty blood. “I think you have an infection.”

“Yes I think so too. It hurts a lot. Or it did before they drugged me. Don’t feel much of anything now.” He crunched down again on the biscuit. 

“If they keep fucking you like this, not letting this heal, this’ll kill you. You’ll get a blood sickness.”

“It’s meant to kill me,” Cole says simply. And Galen feels that wash of cold that has grown familiar around Cole. “Although, not too quickly, how long until we reach the Isle of Stars?”

“Just over a week,” says Galen. “Maybe two days more.”

“And how long for this infection to kill me?”

Galen looks at it again. “I’m no physician. But days, I think. Three or four day unless they keep it clean.”

And at that, Cole laughs. Galen doesn’t know how to respond. He waits and Cole says, “So you’re telling me that if Fry keeps on having me fucked, I’ll die in days.” Even in his drugged state, he sounds oddly pleased about this.

“I think so. Is that good?” The thought occurs to Galen then that perhaps, despite Cole’s manner, the idea of an early death is a relief to him. 

Cole takes a bite of the biscuit. “Fry wants me to live as long as possible. You see what he’s doing? His plan is too make me suffer and suffer, right up until the last moment.”

“The last moment?”

“When we dock on the Isle of Stars. Then he’d be required to hand me over to the Empire. Unless I’d died on the voyage of course, which I will have.” Cole is starting to sound more normal now. The biscuit seems to be working.

“So you want to die?” says Galen, following his own thought. “To get away from Fry.”

“Not exactly. It would be best for me if I can stay alive. But I want Fry to have to choose between killing me early or scaling back his torture. I want him to understand that making someone suffer without killing them isn’t as easy as he thinks.” Cole smiles a nasty smile that makes Galen think he knows exactly what he’s talking about, and Galen wonders again what Cole did to make Fry want to cause him as much suffering as possible.

“Galen,” says Cole. “I need you to make sure Fry knows about this. I need you to go to his cabin now and tell him about the infection.” He smiles again. “I’d love… I’d love to see his face,” he adds and then vomits all over the floor of the cage.

Galen doesn’t question Cole any further. Cole seems less lucid after he vomits.

Galen wonders whether it might be a better to keep the infection from Fry, let Fry carry on drugging Cole, and hurry him into the easiest death that is possible, but Galen is also more and more sure there are many things about this situation he doesn’t understand. So he goes to Fry’s cabin and has another conversation with Fry standing in his doorway, and informs him that Cole has an infected wound where they’ve torn his hole, which could cause a blood sickness and if Fry wants Cole to survive he needs to rest, Galen says this part with faux naivety, as if he hadn’t considered Fry would want anything else.

“Fine,” says Fry, his lips pursed tight. “I’m sure we can rest his arse for a couple of days.”

“Very good, sir,” says Galen.

As he turns to leave Fry says, “A moment, boy.”

Galen turns back around. “Yes, Captain.”

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Captain?”

“About him. Don’t get any ideas. If you try and help him, I will have you flogged.”

Galen takes a breath. “You put him in the pillow room. I can’t just watch him die, sir.”

“I think you can, boy. Please believe me, if you knew what he’d done you’d understand; he does not deserve your mercy.”

*

When Galen gets back to the cabin someone has been in to clean the mess in the cage. Cole is curled on the floor. There’s a bloody bruise across his face, but he’s clean. Whoever did the job, it appears, punched Cole in the face once or twice as he did so.

Cole looks up at Galen as he comes in and smiles. His eyes are bright blue and his smile makes Galen’s heart turn over. “You’re back,” Cole says. “What did he say?”

“He said he’d give your arse a rest,” Galen says, sitting on the bed.

Cole looks delighted. “Oh, you can bet he hates that.” 

He’s still grinning, Galen feels like he could look at that smiling broken face forever. “Can I ask you something?” says Galen.

“Anything, Galen. You’ve just saved my life.”

“Why do you want to stay alive? You said Fry means to kill you before we reach land. Do you really want to live another week like this? With what they’re doing to you?” He looks at the bruise on Cole’s face, the bruises all over him.

“A week talking to you,” says Cole.

“That’s not the real reason.”

“I can’t tell you the real reason,” says Cole. “There are things that would put you in danger if you knew them.”

“I see. Then can I ask you something else?”

“Of course.”

“Why is Fry doing this to you? What crime did you commit? It can’t be just a crime against the empire. It’s personal between you and Fry. What did you do to him?”

Cole glances down for a second. When he looks up, he says, “I can’t tell you that either.” He pauses, like this is difficult. “And not because it would put you in danger. I can’t tell you what I did to Fry, because you’d never help me survive if you knew.”

Galen looks at his feet on the floor beside his bed. He says, “I’d always help you. No matter what you did. No one deserves what is happening to you.”

“I might,” says Cole. Galen still isn’t looking at him, but he hears Cole take a breath before he says, “Let’s not continue this. Tell me about yourself, Galen.”

Galen looks up, “What?”

“Tell me about yourself. Talking about me is, complicated. Tell me about you. How long have you been, working, like this?”

“How long have I been a whore, you mean? I went into training at nine.” 

Cole’s blue eyes widen at that, but Galen shrugs. Does it seem young to Cole? He felt old. He felt older then than he does now. “Trained for four years,” he says. “Started in a basic house. When I was 15 someone asked me to work a ship. I liked it. It’s been ten years of ships since then.”

“Do you think you’ll stick with it?”

“Ships? Or whoring?” Galen doesn’t wait for an answer. “You can make coin whoring longer than most people think. I know whore who are fifty, so, I reckon I’ll stick with it. I like it. Not sure about ships though. Less and less ships take boys now. Since Queece. They keep saying it’s gonna be illegal. Volent would always take me, every trip he made, but now he’s gone. This is likely my last trip. I have a plan though. I knew this day was coming. Didn’t know Volent would die so suddenly, but, it doesn’t matter. ”

“What’s your plan? Can you tell me?”

“I can. Unlike you my life isn’t full of secrets. I have a lover. In Pithiya. We have plans to open a tavern together. Maybe run a small pillow house out of it too. But we need coin to set up. That’s why I’m here. There’s a house on the Isle of Stars. A big one. It’s a busy port and they pay well. I’ve arranged to do half a year indentured there. Maybe longer if it’s hard to find a ship to work on coming back. But it’ll be enough money for Parim and I to set up on our own.”

“Good idea,” says Cole. “Captain’s like Volent are getting rare.”

“I know. If it hadn’t been for this plan, that I knew I had work on Stars I would never had pushed Fry to honour my contract when he replaced Volent. I’ve never worked for a Captain like him. Ship is tight but there are so many floggings. Even before you, it was a vicious place.”

“Does Fry, does he lie with you?”

“He has. Twice. He’s as cruel as you expect. One of those men who want to see you choke or hurt. But those men are everywhere. That’s why they train whores to fake those things.”

“You ought to teach me how,” says Cole.

“I can’t teach you how to withstand what’s happening to you,” says Galen. “I don’t know how they haven’t broken you already.”

“That’s no mystery. I was broken before they started,” says Cole.

*

Despite the infection, they still take Cole on deck every night. 

Galen doesn’t ask Cole what is happening to him. But the bruises around his swollen mouth give him a clue. And he does see that his other wounds are healing. The room no longer smells of infection. He is clearly still being beaten. 

But he wonders about Cole. Watches him sleeping, covered in bruises.And he keeps thinking of what Fry told him, that he wouldn’t help Cole if he knew what he’d done. And of Cole himself, saying the exact same thing. 

One night Galen asks Cole if he thinks Fry will flog him again and he shakes his head. “Too easy to kill me that way. His enforcer’s an animal.”

“I suppose you’re right. At least two of the crew have died from infected flogging wounds since we left Pithiya.”

“Yes. He chose him on purpose.” Cole’s voice sounds a little high and dreamy as he says that. A little like it did when he’d taken the Tiger’s Eye. But there’s no smell of that drug on him.

Galen looks at Cole’s face. He seems paler than usual. Brittle. Afraid. “What is it,” says Galen. “What’s happened?”

Cole pauses like he’s really struggling with something. It’s nothing Galen has ever seen. Cole always seems like he can deal with anything. Like everything Fry does to him, no matter how painful or humiliating, is shrugged off with a defiant gaze and a snarl that he’s had worse. But this, this is new. Eventually Cole says, “He’s going to take my teeth.”

“Your teeth?” Galen isn’t sure he understands. Or he doesn’t want to.

“They’re using my mouth. You know that. I can deal with it. I guess you know that too. They can’t touch me that way. None of what they’re doing is touching me and Fry hates that. But last night I bit one of them. I didn’t mean to do it. I try not to react at all. But he forced it in so deep and somehow startled me and I bit down. He screamed and Fry said something about pulling all my teeth out if I did it again. And that, that panicked me. I shouldn’t have let him see it, but I did.”

“Your teeth. Even after everything else they’ve done, that’s worse. Pulling out your teeth.”

“Yes. It’s worse. If they pull out my teeth I’ll be a ruined thing. I’ll drool, my face will cave in.”

 _You won’t be able to charm people_ , Galen thinks. _You won’t be this handsome tortured creature anymore_. But he doesn’t say that. He says, “When is he going to do it?”

“I know how his mind works. He saw the effect it had on me. He knows it will ruin me. He’s given me today to really feel the fear, but he won't wait longer than that. He’ll do it tonight so he can enjoy as many days of debasing me in that state as he can. I don’t want to live like that.” Cole shakes his head. He truly is broken in a way Galen has never seen. “Even for a few more days.”

“I could kill you.” Galen says blankly, “I have a knife.”

“I can’t let you. Fry will execute you if you do that. You’ll probably end up taking my place, before he does it.”

“Then what?” says Galen.

“I might not be able to talk after tonight,” says Cole. “So I’ll talk now. I’ll tell you who I am. I want you to know.”

Galen nods. Cole takes a breath.

“Cole is a common enough name in Callisto, so I doubt you ever thought twice about it. But I’m Red Cole.”

Galen’s mouth falls open a little. It had never occurred to him. But man called Cole who Captain Fry, a loyal supporter of Queece and the empire, hated beyond reason. Perhaps that connection would have been obvious. Except for one thing.

“Red Cole of Thunder Rebellion? He’s dead.”

“No.”

“He died in the Uprising at the Emerald Palace.”

“No.”

Galen just shakes his head. The Uprising, the attempt on Queece’s life, had become a bloodbath. Everyone knew. There was no way the operations leader had survived. “Red Cole is dead,” Galen says.

“Not yet,” says Cole. “Not for another week.”

“But you didn’t survive.”

“I did.”

Galen shakes his head. The Thunder Rebellion were all but wiped out when they tried to attack The Emerald Palace. And the death of Red Cole, one of their heroes, had been cause for a public festival. Could this man in this cage really be him? “You said if I knew what you’d done I wouldn’t help you. Do you think I am so loyal to the empire I’d betray you if I knew who you were?”

“No. I definitely don’t. This knowledge is dangerous. Knowing I’m still alive could have got you killed if it wasn’t for the fact I’ll be dead for real soon. But there are things that I have done that you don’t know. Thing about me I’d rather you didn’t know until after I’m dead. Be patient. You’ll find out soon. And then you’ll hate me.”

There’s little more to say after that. They both sleep and when Galen leaves to go to the galley that evening, Cole just gives him a stoic nod. And that’s it.

*

There are only three sailor’s needing Galen’s services that evening. Two in the arse and one in the mouth. He’s on his knees, wiping his face, looking up at the man who’s just used him and he says, “It seems quiet tonight.”

“Yeah. Captain says he’s going to be doing something special with the prisoner. Lot of the men are keen to see it.”

“But not you.”

The sailor shrugs, fastening his breeches. “I prefer you,” he says and he seems to blush slightly as he says it. “I think you’re prettier.”

“Oh,” says Galen, slightly surprised. “Thank you.”

Galen doesn’t remember deciding to go up on deck. But, he finds himself up there. Again, amongst the torches and the crowd of sailors. Once again he finds he can see Cole, lashed to a barrel. And once again a man is raping him. This time in the mouth not the arse. And he’s angled slightly, so Captain Fry, in his same seat, can see Cole’s face.

Galen looks around, trying to work out if the horrors Cole feared have been done to him yet. He moves around the circle, trying to avoid being seen by Fry but also, needing to get a view of Cole’s face. Of Cole’s mouth. 

When he finds a spot, he gasps at what he sees. There are two teeth lying on the deck. Big back teeth with bloody roots, looking like they’ve been torn out with pliers. 

But two. Only two.

The man using Cole’s mouth jerks and finishes, coming messily over Cole’s face in sloppy ribbon. Cole gasps and spits. Blood comes out of his mouth along with the seed.

Galen is cold all over. 

Fry’s thin high voice says, “Very nice. Now. We’ll take another of his teeth.”

Galen’s head swims. He feel bilious. But it is clear what is happening. Fry is taking his teeth one by one. Drawing it out over the evening. Galen looks at Cole again and his eyes seem glassy. This is breaking him. Truly breaking him. Fry’s enforcer steps forward, pliers in hand. Cole jerks in the ropes. And Galen doesn’t even think of the consequences when he shouts out, “No. No don’t.”

Fry turns to look at him. Every man in the crowd does the same. There’s a moment when everyone seems to be waiting. Galen looks at Cole. Cole is staring at him along with everyone else.

“So,” says Fry eventually, in a long sweet drawl. “Our whore is here. So you have changed your mind?”

“What?” This confuses Galen. He doesn’t understand for a moment what Fry is referring to. Then he does. “No,” Galen says, “I won’t fuck him. I just came here to tell you this is wrong. It’s disgusting and it needs to stop.” And as he says that, he gets a single idea. It’s a plan. It’s a hopeless plan. But it’s all he has.

“I’m sorry, boy, but that’s really of no consequence. And I told you next time I saw you up here you would be expected to join the festivities.”

“I don’t care what you want from me, you’re a monster,” shouts Galen, over a crowd that has started to jeer. “I won’t do it. I won’t touch him.”

“Fine,” says Fry. “Help him.”

As three large sailors appear from the crowd and grab hold of Galen, he thinks to himself that his plan, wild as it is, might actually work. He glances over at Cole again, at the two teeth lying on the deck, Fry’s enforcer, still holding the pliers. This is going to be hard. But it’s the only way. Cole is staring at him, he still looks dazed, but also, somehow, amazed.

Galen is dragged before Cole. A man pinning each of his arms, another tears away his breeches, then tries to guide Galen’s limp dick towards Cole’s bloody mouth. Galen swallows a breath as the head of his dick touches Cole’s skin, just briefly, just the tideline of his bruised lips. Cole looks up, those eyes, even in firelight, are like the sky. They meet Galen’s and Cole gives a tiny nod. Like he knows what Galen is planning. Like he wants him to go through with it. 

The man attempting to get Galen’s dick into Cole’s mouth grunts. “Get him closer,” he mutters.

The two men holding Galen shuffle, trying to get Galen near enough.

Behind them, Fry seems very aware of the problem. “Get him hard first.”

There are hands on Galen’s dick then, hands trying to jerk and stroke him into a state of arousal. One of them spits on his dick and snarls out, “C’mon, bitch. Let’s see it.” And behind them, Fry snaps, “Get hard and fuck his mouth or you’ll be flogged instead.”

But Galen has no intention of getting hard. And Galen has years of experience controlling the behaviour of his dick.

The man who seems to be the leader of the three manipulating Galen, the spitter, the snarler, resorts to slapping Galen’s dick against Cole’s lips a couple of times. Cole looks up. He looks more himself. This pause in the night’s horror show has given him enough time to regain his resilient charm. He looks at Galen, almost amused. “What’s the matter, baby?” he says, words slurring in his swollen mouth, “don’t you like me?”

One of the men holding Galen laughs. And then more laughter breaks out. Rebellious laughter. Dangerous laughter. 

Fry can’t help but respond to that. “Enough,” he shouts. “Enough of this. He will entertain us one way or another. Flog him. Flog the whore. Ruin him. We have no use of him on this tub now.”

Galen is dragged back, and Cole, realising the stakes, shouts out, “No. No.” And the result of that is a sailor standing near to him punching him in the face, hard enough that he jerks sideways, the barrel he’s lashed to teeters and when it rights itself, Cole is coughing and spitting out more blood. 

Galen is being dragged across the deck to the flogging frame.

It’s an iron frame, standing vertical on a clear piece of deck, with plenty of space for a lash and an audience. His arms are dragged above his head and out to each side, spreading his back, his are wrists tied in pace with rope. Sailors know how to tie knots, there barely any point in testing how well he’s held, but he tugs anyway and the hemp is rough where it bites his wrists. 

He’s seen this done. Fry is a flogger and, although Galen spends little time with the men, Fry usually insists everyone who can be spared turns out to watch floggings and he’s been ordered to witness three men have the skin removed from their backs. 

But although he’s seen it, in all his time on ships, this has never been done to Galen. 

His shirt is ripped off his back and he feels the air, cold and slightly damp against his skin. He turns his head and sees Fry. He’s not on his high chair anymore. He’s coming closer to Galen, and he’s smiling. For one nasty, black moment Galen thinks Fry is planning to wield the whip himself, but no, the enforcer is behind him, holding a familiar long, multi-tailed cat.

Galen is shaking and it isn’t the cold. But if he looks across the deck he can still see two of Cole’s teeth lying on the boards. No one is concerned with pulling teeth now. And if anything will get Galen through what’s about to happen, it’s that.

“How many,” says the enforcer to Fry, loud enough that everyone can hear. He’s already in place, whip unfurled. 

Galen turns his head to the frame as Fry says, “Until he changes his mind.”

The crowd cheers, the whip flies, the first stripe lands like a blow first and a fire second. Galen grunts, he wants to scream but he can’t seem to work out how. His wrists jerk harder against the hemp. He knows it won’t move but when the second lash falls he feel panic rush through him and he’s jerking in the frame. He can hear jeering, someone saying, “You’ve only had two, whore,” and then there’s another lash and it hurts so much he thinks he’s going to cry.

This was the plan, this or something like it. He had no idea how much it was going to hurt.

It keeps on going. It’s brutal. Galen is covered in cold sweat, writhing and crying. His back is just one raw screaming mess of flesh. Or that’s how it feels. When he looks up, his wrists are bleeding. 

In amongst all the voices, the cheers and jeers and randoms shouts of things like, “Harder, he can take it”, “Make him take it” he hears it so clear he wonders if he imagines it. But it’s Cole. It’s Cole’s voice, sounding like a grinding snarl, saying, “For god’s sake Fry, you’ll kill him.”

He doesn’t hear a reply. But he knows Cole is right. People die like this. And he could. He could die. 

The sounds of the crowd become a roar. The whip strokes merge into one burning pain that goes on and on. Everything is swimming.


	3. Aboard Bright Flame 3

Galen wakes on his bed in the pillow room. He is not dead. 

He’s lying on his stomach. 

“Don’t roll over.” That’s Cole’s voice. 

Galen opens his eyes and lifts his head. Every movement hurts. 

He looks at Cole in the cage. “Did you keep your teeth?” he says.

Cole bares them. “Only lost two thanks to you and your distraction. But Fry’ll pull them out tonight. That was very good of you, but you can’t exactly do that every night.”

“Bought us some time,”

“Yeah,” says Cole. “Great. I’m sure we’ll rally now and come back fresh to a resounding victory.”

Galen laughs. It hurts. His laughing trails into a moan of pain.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” says Cole.

“If I knew what you’d done I would never have done that right?”

“That’s right. Do you want me to tell you what it was I did?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to know while you were still alive.”

“I don’t. But you’ve earned it. You deserve to know the kind of man you gave your skin for.”

Galen feels sleepy. Everything hurts. “Yeah,” he says and his voice sounds distant. “Yeah, tell me a story, Cole.”

“Did you know that Fry wasn’t always a ship’s captain?” says Cole. “He used to captain a squad of Callisto enforcers. I think his career change may have been down to me. And what you’ve seen him do to me, this isn’t the first time he’s used rape as a punishment. That’s what his enforcers used to do. They’d take villages in the mountains, the ones that were rumoured to be supporters of factions likes ours, like Thunder Rebellion, and they’d torch them, burn down houses with families shut inside. And they’d rape everyone they could. Children, old women, boys, everyone. Some men they’d kill, but that was to cover up their real method of terror. So I decided Fry had to be stopped.”

“You? What did you do?”

“Queece wasn’t my first attempt at an assassination. First, I intended to kill Fry. I took a squad of men to his house. But he wasn’t at home.” Cole takes a shaky swallow. “His wife and children were. And after the raids Fry had been running in the mountains, once Fry’s guards were dispatched, it seemed clear to some of my men what we ought to do.”

“Oh,” says Galen. He didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d known it had to be something bad, but not this. Never anything like this. “How old were Fry’s children?”

“A daughter of thirteen,” says Cole a pause, “and a son of nine.”

“Nine.” Galen takes a breath. “I went into training at nine.”

“It’s not the same. You were a village boy. Fry’s son was pampered and soft. What they did to him,” Cole looks up, lost to the memory. 

“They,” says Galen. “They. What they did. Not you. You didn’t do this.”

Cole says, “Yes. But don’t think I deserve any glory for that. I chose those men, I chose brutes. I wanted Fry’s end to be vicious and cruel. And because of me that cruelty was unleashed on his wife and children. And when they were done, we burnt the house down with Fry’s family still inside.”

“Were they killed?” Galen says slowly, overwhelmed. 

“His son, I think survived. That’s what I heard. It was kept quiet mostly. Seen as a victory for us, so the empire suppressed it.” He looks up, right into Galen’s eyes. “I didn’t try to stop them. When we broke into Fry’s home and he wasn’t there, I didn’t see any reason to spare his family. He’d never spared our families. I let my men take his wife, take his children. I was desperate and it was the only way I could think of to make him suffer.”

“Cole,” says Galen, not sure what he is going to say next.

“Don’t absolve me,” says Cole. “We paid a price for what we did in the end. Yes, the raid on Fry’s home and the deaths of his family were seen as a victory for us, and because of that I was asked to lead a similar attack on the Emerald Palace, aiming to do the same to Queece himself. And you know how that ended.”

Galen doesn’t say anymore. His back hurts so much and he feels exhausted. He closes his eyes for a moment and sleep takes him. 

*

When Galen wakes again, he doesn’t know where he is. 

He’s not in the pillow room.

He’s still on his stomach. He has some kind of dressing on his back. Something cold and soothing. The pain is gone. It feels good. But when he opens his eyes and turns his head, he sees a wall of bars. 

He’s in the brig.

“Hello?” he calls out. His mouth dusty and dry. How long has he been here?

_Why is he here?_

He wonders if maybe Cole is dead. If Fry finally killed him. And now he is to be punished for helping him. Perhaps even hung. Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps this is the end.

Eventually, a man Galen has never seen before opens the door of the brig and steps into the narrow space on the other side of the barred wall. 

“Hello Galen,” says the man. He’s slight and young, sweet faced. His hair is fair, curling onto his shoulders and his eyes light brown. Galen knows every man on this ship. This is not one of the crew.

“Hello,” says Galen. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Bird,” says the man. “Cole told me to tell you that he’s sorry you’re in here and he is doing his best to fix the situation.”

“What?” Galen struggles to make sense of what any of that could mean. “Cole’s alive.”

“Red Cole is very much alive.” Bird smiles. “He is recovering well in the captain’s cabin.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Fry allowed him in the captain’s cabin?”

“Fry is no longer in charge of this vessel.”

“Then who is?”

Bird’s smile grows even bigger. “We are. The Thunder Rebellion.”

“Oh.” Galen isn’t sure what to make of this. The last thing he heard about the Thunder Rebellion was the story Cole had been telling him when he fell asleep. “What happened?”

“Last night we took the boat. We executed everyone aboard and rescued our hero, your prisoner. He asked us not to execute you. So, we put you in here.”

“There’s something on my back.”

“Yeah. It’s herbs. We brought a physician for Cole and he saw to you.” Bird flicks something out of his teeth. “Not sure why, because I reckon we’ll still have to kill you.”

“I just need to get to the Isle of Stars. Don’t kill me. We must be only days away. Why don’t you leave me there. I’m a pillow boy. I can earn my keep on the ship until then.”

“We can’t do that. You know Red Cole’s alive. The plan was always to kill everyone who’d seen him alive. People think he died at Emerald Palace, see.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Save it, buddy. I don’t need telling. I’m just here to pass you messages and check you’re not dead. Again, that’s a waste of time if you ask me, but that’s what I’m doing.”

“Can you ask Cole to come and see me?”

Bird shrugs. “I can pass messages. But Cole is being treated for many injuries he received aboard your ship.”

“Bright Flame was never my ship.”

“I’ll tell him,” Bird says as he leaves. 

Later that day Bird returns with food and later still the physician. Both times Galen asks Bird if Cole is coming and Bird says he doesn’t know. 

*

Three days pass, and thanks to the physician his back is well healed, when Cole walks in through door of the brig.

It’s strange to see him wearing clothes. The shirt and breeches are plain, no different to similar items Galen has seen on dozens of men, but on Cole they look wrong, covering a body Galen is used to staring at whenever he wishes. Cole wears a blue neckerchief. It’s the same colour as his eyes. There were a lot of bruises on his neck, perhaps the fabric is there to hide them. 

Cole’s hair is shorter. No longer now than his chin. He looks thin and pale. Galen can see that he limps as he turns to close the door and leans against the wall. He needs that wall, thinks Galen, realising that he never saw Cole standing up, supporting his own weight. He was either in the cage, lashed to a barrel or being dragged between them.

But Cole’s smile is still dazzling, “Galen,” he says, his voice more full and rich than Galen has ever heard it. “I am, I know this will sound hollow, I am truly sorry about this.”

“Are you? Why don’t you let me out then?”

“I don’t have the keys. I would not be allowed down here with them.”

Galen shakes his head. “You’re their captain. You could get the keys. You could order whoever has the keys to give them to you.”

Cole looks down. “I suppose I could. But, leadership is not a right. I am not as popular as I once was in this faction. Since the Emerald Palace Revolt, I have been, something of a liability and I have to be cautious or I will lose what sway I have. I have enough power here to stay your execution, but I am afraid that is all. I risk mutiny otherwise.”

“Couldn’t you use your charm?” Galen says darkly.

“It has it’s limits.”

“So, what is this? Did you play me? Did you know they were coming for you? Did you know all along you’d be rescued? Is that why you wanted to stay alive?”

“Mostly. I am not sure how much will to stay alive I would have found without you, but, yes, I knew there was a plan. One day I would be found by the empire on Glass Island. And probably by Fry. We knew it would be a boat. So the plan was always, if I was captured, to take the ship I was on and kill every person on board. So no one knew I was still alive.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I’m a hero. I’m a hero who died trying to assassinate Queece at the Emerald Palace. Over a hundred men died on that mission and it is nothing but shame that I was not one of them. But when I saw the way it was going, how outranked we were, I ran. I don’t know why. It’s not like me, but that night. I couldn’t go through with it.”

Cole looks pale. He’s confessed two horrors to Galen in a row now. His darkest moments. Galen says, “Because of what happened to Fry’s family?”

“What?” says Cole.

“Your faction were on that mission to kill Queece because the leaders of the Rebellion thought you’d been such a success killing Fry’s family. They sent you into another massacre. And you couldn’t do it. Not again.”

“Something like that,” says Cole.

“But they didn’t want anyone to know one of their heroes had run, so they sent you into exile. And that’s why you were on Glass Island.”

“Until Fry found me.”

“Did you kill him? Fry?”

“No,” Cole shakes his head. “I suppose there would be a poetry in that, but I don’t have the stomach for killing anymore.” He drops his voice. “Don’t tell anyone. I can’t have anyone find out I’m worthless.”

“Not when you’re such a renowned warrior.”

“Indeed. But, Galen, I need you to know. I can’t save you.”

“Save me? Save me from what.” Will the Thunder Rebellion kill him yet? Galen doesn’t think so. Why keep him alive for days. Heal him. Feed him. Why do that and then kill him?

Cole’s inhale is low and steady, like he’s buying time before he says, “They’re going to send you to the Harem of Caen as a slave. I’ve agreed to it. It’s the only way I can keep you alive.

Galen swallows. “The Harem of Caen? Is that better? Than death?”

“If you would prefer death, I’ll do it myself.”

“I thought you had no stomach for killing?”

“It wouldn’t be that, with you.”

“But why,” says Galen and it comes out as a whine. “Just because I know you’re alive. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You won’t need to. Callisto have the manifest. Someone will know what Fry was planing. They’ll hunt down anyone who was on this ship when they realise it’s been taken by the Thunder Rebellion. Anyone who might know anything. They’ll find you and you’ll be taken and tortured for everything you know.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

Cole looks annoyed at this. “You know you do. You know I’m alive. It’s enough.”

“But I won’t tell them that. I’ve said. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll say it was pirates. They took the ship and kept me on as pillow boy. Just take me to the Isle of Stars and leave me there. No one will know how I got there.”

Cole is rubbing his hands over each other. Galen looks at his knuckles, the broken skin on them is scabbed over now, just dark lines. “They will torture you. Have you ever been tortured by Callisto Inquisitors? I know men who have. They are shells. They are barely human. And those were soldiers. Trained to withstand pain.”

“You don’t think I’m strong enough?”

“I think no one is strong enough. No one who has people they love.” 

Galen doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t thought about Parim for days, perhaps weeks. He’d almost forgotten he’d told Cole about him.

“Galen, please,” says Cole, “will you still deny you ever met me, ever saw me alive when they bring in your lover and he is nailed to the wall in front of you? You’d protect me, even then, someone you barely know and who you know to be a monster, over him? Over the man you love?”

Galen realises something in a dark rush. “Is that why you asked me about my life? That night when I told you about Parim. You asked me about myself because you wanted to know if I was a risk?”

Cole looked grimmer than he had so far. He says, “You know you were always meant to be a trap for me, don’t you? And I couldn’t resist it, even though I knew that was what you were. That was the reason Fry had put me in your room. You are extremely personable and empathetic. It’s your job, of course you are. You are also physically very attractive and I am not immune to such things. And you are an outsider, not in the empire’s navy. You are the only person on this ship I might consider some kind of ally. Not to mention that display on the first night. Offering me to you, knowing you’d refuse. And all done so I would trust and later confide in you. Fry always planned to torture you for information about me after I was dead. And I doubt the empire won’t follow that lead.”

“There must be something you can do. Please. Not Caen. I’ll never get home again.”

“Galen, I begged. Believe me, I begged them to let me keep you. You have to know, if there was anything I could do, I’d do it. I’d do anything to fix this situation, but I can’t.”

“If there’s no way around it, then perhaps could do something for me before I am sold.”

“Anything, Galen. Until we reach land in the morning I will give you anything you need. Please, just ask. Would you like the physician?”

“I want what Fry offered me.”

Cole’s eyes are wide. “What?”

“What Fry offered me. What I turned down because I thought no one deserved to be treated the way you were being treated. I was wrong. You deserve everything Fry did to you and more. Fry was right. I should never have helped you. I wish I’d joined in with the men on deck. I wish I’d fucked you. I wish I’d let them pull out your teeth.”

“You’d be dead now if you had.”

“But I would have had you. And I want you to give me what I turned down because I thought you were worth it.”

“You want to fuck me?” Cole spoke like he could hardly believe what he was saying.

“I’ll take your mouth.”

This, Galen knows, is a terrible thing to ask. To ask of Cole. Who has spent the last weeks being abused by every man on the ship. Who has only spent two nights in the captain’s bed recovering. He’s still limping. He’s still weak as he stands on the other side of the bars of the brig. But he’s sending Galen to The Harem of Caen. One of the worst places in the Northern Lands. He’s sending Galen to his own nightmare. So Galen doesn’t care. Galen thinks that if Cole wants to show he’s sorry, he can do the worst thing Galen can think of to ask of him.

Cole hasn’t moved so Galen grinds out. “I only helped you because I wanted you. You owe me. Without me your army would be making you a set of wooden teeth right now.”

Cole stares at Galen for a long time. “I’m not coming in there.”

“Why not? I won’t hurt you. I’m not a fighter. You are.”

“I wouldn’t fight you. If I fought you now I wouldn’t win, the state I’m in right now.”

“You don’t have to come in. Get on your knees. Get close to the bars.”

Cole obeys, with only the smallest pause. He wobbles going down and Galen’s heart pulses. He wants to stop this. But he can’t. He’s too angry. He gets up from the cot in the cell and takes a step towards Cole. He pulls at his breeches so they fall away from his legs. He’s hard. Not because he’s a professional who can control such things, but because he wants this so much. He’s wanted Cole since the moment he saw him. Even a crumpled body in a cage. Cole, even ruined was beautiful. Now, even only slightly healed, is beautiful. 

But Cole’s beauty isn’t why he’s doing this. If it were only that he’d stop. It’s still anger. Anger is why he’s doing this.

Cole looks up at him with those big bright eyes. Those eyes through bars. Galen’s breath catches. His mouth is inches from Galen’s dick. Galen’s dick which is wet now, glistening with need. “You know what they did to me. What they forced me to do.” Cole says tightly. “You’re the same as them now.”

“I’m not forcing you. I’m locked in here.”

“You are forcing me. You know I can’t refuse you anything.” 

“Because you’re selling me to The Harem of Caen?”

“Yes.” Cole lowers his eyes. 

“Then do it. You know that will destroy me. You owe me. Suck my dick,” Galen snarls it out, snarls like that to keep from crying.

Cole doesn’t hesitate now. He leans forward and his mouth opens and his tongue slides forward and caresses Galen’s dick. Slowly, soft. Those big blue eyes look up at Galen. He feels like he can see forever in them. Galen’s breath catches at the feeling, so much, too much. Seeing Cole likes this, giving him this is too, too much. “Oh, Cole,” he whispers, leaning forward to lean against the bars. Fingers of one hand curling around them to hold him up. 

Cole swallows Galen’s dick. An easy slide, taking it deep. Galen’s sighs, legs weakening. Cole’s mouth is so good. So hot and wet, but more than that. It’s Cole. It’s Cole on his knees, giving him pleasure. And that’s what really makes Galen moan, dick pulsing. His nipples pebbling up hard, his thighs shake, liquid. He can feel Cole’s tongue running over the length of his dick, teasing and caressing it. 

Both of Galen’s hands are curled around the bars of the cell now, the whole length of his body is pressed hard against them. He throws his head back, pleasure breaking over him like a wave as he comes, hard, down Cole’s throat. 

Galen can’t help himself. Even before it’s over, he drops to his knees opposite Cole. The bars between them barely exist. He presses his mouth to Cole’s and sucks his seed from it, let’s it move between their mouths and become a kiss. 

A kiss Cole moans into.

That moan lights Galen’s insides. “Please,” Galen pleads in Cole’s mouth, “please, more. I want you so much, please.”

They keep kissing, Galen pushing his hands through the bars, twisting up and under to Cole’ warm chest. “Please,” he moans again as Cole moves to bite at his chin. Pressing into the bars. Cole’s hands are straining to get under his shirt.

When they break apart they are both panting. Cole looks at Galen with bright lit eyes. His lips are swollen, bright red. “I have to go,” he says. “I have to go now.”

“Don’t,” says Galen. “Stay. God, please, stay. Please. Send me to Caen. Do whatever you have to do to me tomorrow, but, please, lie with me tonight. Fuck me. Anything. I need you to touch me. I need you.”

“I can’t.” Cole sounds broken. “Even if I wanted to, I just can’t. After Fry I… I couldn’t do that.”

“You couldn’t fuck me? Your dick is okay? Did he do something to your dick?” Galen sounds like a child when he says that. He knows he does.

Cole smiles, but the smile is weak and sad. “I don’t think I can be, like that, with anyone. Not ever again now. I have to,” Cole says, getting to his feet, leaving Galen on his knees, caged. “I have to go.”

Galen can’t speak. He has nothing left. 

“They’ll come for you in the morning,” says Cole. “When we make land. Please don’t fight. They’re looking for a reason to kill you.


	4. The Harem of Caen 1

The Harem of Caen is one of the great wonders of the world. Adventurers and pleasure seekers travel for miles to pass through it’s fabled gold gates. Galen has heard many a sailor tell a tale of a night where an extraordinary amount of silver was spent on an experience beyond worth. Although, since the Age of Queece, The Harem is more usually mentioned as an example of the appalling decadence of the Northern Lands. As another justification for raids on their territories. 

The Harem began as a place for the king of Caen to house his wives and pleasure slaves and, within it’s high walls, the King’s private pillow house still exists, but something more has grown up around it. More houses, that took advantage of the men who travelled with the king and were not allowed in his harem, offering a place for them to seek their own pleasures. Eventually people came to The Harem of Caen who were not part of any kingly visit, just to enjoy the collection of pleasures. 

The harem grew so large and so popular and so rich that Caen built a wall around it so it could be protected from hostile invaders and so it’s many slaves could be contained and controlled.

The Harem of Caen is now a small city dedicated to pleasure.

Early in the morning, Bright Flame docks at Disran one of Caen’s largest ports. Galen, his hands bound with rope, is exchanged among the cargo of wine and fruit to a small gang of traders, but he is not taken by the same group who take the rest of the goods. He is led away by a well-dressed blonde woman and two large men to a wagon, shoved in and driven off at speed. 

He looks back, with some hopeless wish that he might see Cole, standing on the deck of Bright Flame, watching him go. But he sees nothing but sky.

Galen has some idea of how long this journey will be. He has never been to the Harem of Caen, but he knows whores who have. He knows it is about three hours by wagon, from Disran.

Spending a year or so working in The Harem of Caen, is a common enough thing to do among the people Galen knows. Nowhere pays better. He considered it himself, when working out ways to get money for himself and Parim. But eventually had decided a house in the Isle of Stars would be a better fit for him. It wouldn’t pay as much, but it felt less brutal somehow. The Harem had a reputation to uphold, and Galen knew, that the comfort of whores was the last concern when it came to maintaining that reputation. 

He’d heard many bad stories about The Harem, stories of customers asking for outlandish, grotesque things and whores being pressured to provide them, of drinks being laced with Tiger’s Eye or even Black Root. And these were things that had happened to whores like Galen. Business people who leased themselves to The Harem for several months or a year. Galen would not be one of those, Galen, like the majority of the whores in The Harem of Caen would be a slave, fully owned by his house.

There’s only one way out for The Harem for a slave that Galen knows of. If a visitor with enough coin decides they like you enough to buy your contract. Galen decides on the wagon journey overland, that he intends find a rich man who will do just that. 

“Let me tell you a little something about the house I run,” says the woman, who is sitting, straight-backed, opposite him in the back of the wagon. “My name is Misha and I run the only Grey House in The Harem of Caen. Do you know what that is?”

Galen shakes his head.

“Do you know about The Ruby of The Harem?”

“I think so,” says Galen. “The Harem of Caen will provide any pleasure that is requested. Whatever you desire, that desire can be fulfilled, for a price.”

“Indeed,” says Misha. “And the ruby?”

“The story is that if ever anyone comes to The Harem and their desire cannot be met, they will be given the ruby. I have been told it is very large.”

“The size of a dragon’s egg,” says Misha. “And no one has ever claimed it. Do you know why?”

Galen shakes his head.

“Because most people’s desires. Even the ones they think are desperately wanton, are tawdry when you see hundreds of them every day. That’s why why have the system we have. Most houses in The Harem, you might know, have a number. Those numbered houses are what most people visit for. Those houses contain a range of female whores. This is what most people who visit us want. But, in addition, we have the red houses and the black houses. The red houses provide specialism, usually for people who want pain or some kind of related adventure. You’ve worked ships, you must have met men who love the lash before.”

Galen nods.

“Then we have the black houses. The black houses offer men. Again, not a pleasure that will be news to you, I am sure.” She smiles. “Of course there are houses that offer red and black, and my house is a grey house.”

“Right,” says Galen, slightly mystified. “Grey.”

“Grey is a combination of black and white. White houses offer virgins. Or young girls who will say they are virgins.”

“So you are a black house, a men’s house, that does the same.”

“Yes.”

“You offer virgins? Boys? So why would you buy me?”

Misha says, “I need someone to keep my house neat, take care of my pillow boys, you seemed perfect for that.”

Galen narrows his eyes. “You bought me as house mother? I was cheap enough for that? I’m Callisto trained. I’ve worked for ten years.”

“You’re right. A black house would have paid far more for you, perhaps whoever sold you didn’t know what you’re worth.”

Galen nods. But he is sure Misha is wrong about that. This is not a mistake. This is someone’s plan.

As the wagon bumps along, Galen closes his eyes and thinks. Did Cole sell him to a grey house to protect him, to find him a place where he would be safe in The Harem, not used? Or did he, and Galen squirmed a little at the thought, did he do it because he didn’t want Galen lying with other men. 

Or did he, and this was the darkest thought, did he do it to close off the same escape route Galen had thought of. Did he do it so there was no way Galen could find a rich client who would buy him out of The Harem?

*

Eventually the wagon passes through the gold gates and draws up outside a house that flies and black flag and a white one outside. It’s a wooden house, two stories, comfortably large. Galen is ushered inside to a receiving room full of soft furnishings. The boys of the house look up, interested to see him. One or two, pout and preen, taking him for a customer, before Misha says, “Boys, this is Galen. He will be your new House Mother.” Misha takes the ropes from Galen’s wrists as she speaks, but he knows the doors and windows of the house are locked. He knows the whole city is walled and guarded.

This is a prison, for someone like him.

The boys of The Grey House are aged from around 15 to 20, dressed in light gauzey fabrics or very little. Many are very attractive, some have strange, but distinctive looks. Galen looks around at them and takes a breath. Here he is.

*

Galen has a small room. Just at the top of the stairs. One small window and a narrow bed. Not a room for taking guests. 

As the weeks pass he learns the names of all the boys in the house, he learns his new job, the business, the rhythms. He makes sure the boys eat properly and keep clean and healthy. He often has to check if they are damaged, take them off work for a day. Keep them rested. He remembers the Thunder Rebellion’s physician on Bright Flame. He’d asked about the herbs used on his back and uses them when boys are hurt. He picks up more knowledge when he asks other house mothers. He learns about infections, fevers and how to care for people who have been taken pleasure drugs. 

He soothes bruises with herbal baths and stitches wounds with thread. He makes boys who’ve taken Tiger’s Eye eat biscuit. He watches over boys who’ve taken black root until they’ve sweated their way through the crash.

He’s sets broken bones more than once. 

Sometimes taking care of the boys of the Grey House reminds him of taking care of Cole, when they get infections, when they writhe with pleasure drugs, when he bribes them to eat their biscuit with the offer of a single kiss. What is happening to them isn’t as brutal as what was done to Cole, but it is often very harsh. The reputation of the Harem of Caen is real. The whores’ comforts are of no concern when pitched against the reputation of the Harem to satisfy any desire. Boys are sent to cruel men, boys are woken from sleep to be sent into service, men who have injured the boys badly are allowed to continue taking pleasures as long as they pay.

Some of the boys are unhappy, some are not. Most have been sold to the house and are wholly owned by it, like Galen, like, he discovers, Misha, who runs three houses on the same row, but is just another slave. 

Weeks become months and Galen and Misha become closer. Very late night, often so late it is early morning, Misha and Galen sit together by the fire in the house receiving room. Misha tells him how she has a lover in another house called Archer, but she is worried Archer may be selected by the king for his private Harem.

Galen has seen that. The armoured building right in the centre of the walled city. 

“The royal family tolerate what the Harem has become, partly for the income, but mostly because they have the right to take any whore from it and place them in the private harem. If Archer is selected she’ll be moved inside there and I’ll never see her again.” Misha looks down into her glass of green tonic.

“You can’t go in there? She can’t come out?”

“No. Anyone who lies with the king is kept isolated. For paternity.” She smiles a thin smile. “It will be good for Archer though. She will want for nothing.”

“Nothing but freedom.”

“None of us are free in here,” Misha says softly. She is right. “Do you have anyone? Do you have a lover?”

“I did,” says Galen. “In Pithiya. He’ll be expecting me home this month.” Galen has a small lump in his throat as he says that. And he adds, “And there was another. On Bright Flame.”

“You mean Red Cole?” says Misha. 

Galen is surprised by that. It shows in his face, because Misha says, “I used to be close to them. Thunder Rebellion. I am still loyal. That’s why they sold you to my house. I didn’t tell you that, I’m sorry. I didn’t trust you then. But I didn’t take you because I wanted a house mother, they asked me to take you, to watch you. They told me about your situation.”

“Oh,” says Galen, what else to say?

“Red Cole has something of a reputation, you know,” says Misha.

“I can imagine.”

“Charmed many a soldier into his service, I believe.”

“Is he,” Galen curses himself even as he asks, “Is he okay? Have you heard. Is he safe?”

“They move him around now. I think they believe they will need him one day. That’s all I know. He won’t come here,” she adds, as if Galen’s thoughts were obvious. “He’s being watched. If he comes here the Rebellion will kill him.”

“If he comes here? Why would they kill him for that?”

“Because the only reason he’d come here is for you.”

*

There are new boys in the house every so often. It is necessary for a Grey House. As boys grow older they move to larger Black Houses or once or twice to Black Reds if they show certain aptitudes. Galen tries to make sure they are sent where they will be happiest. 

It’s after Galen has been there a year, that Rask arrives.

When Galen sees him, climbing down off wagon, his heart stops. It’s the hair, or the nose, he isn’t sure, and he’s younger, of course, much younger, but he looks so much like Cole.

The way he stands and looks up at The Grey House, cocky, hands on hips, smirk on lips, it just how Galen images young Cole would have stood. Cole before his world was destroyed over and again.

The boy catches Galen’s eye and winks, “Hello handsome,” he says. “Are you the one who takes care of us?”

“I suppose so,” says Galen.

“I’m going to enjoy that,” says the boy.

Rask is quickly, very popular. He doesn’t just have Cole’s looks, he has his charm too. He dominates the receiving room in a short black hip cloth and very little else, biting his lip and tossing his hair. He quickly gets a good line of regulars.

When the house is quiet and Rask is tired, he always seems to seek out Galen. For all that he is cocky and wild, he seems to look softer then. He nestles up under Galen’s arm or on his lap and steals sips of Galen’s green tonic.

And some nights, it hurts Galen to look at him. He thinks that maybe, without Rask’s arrival, he would have found a way to get over Cole. To forget him. But now he can’t. Every time Rask walks in, Galen’s heart stops.

It is only weeks before Galen lies with Rask. When Rask squirms in Galen’s lap, let’s his hip cloth ride up so he’s bare against Galen’s breeches, rubs his hole across Galen’s crotch, Galen doesn’t resist it. He doesn’t control himself. He let’s what Rask is doing make him hard. He tips his head back when Rask nuzzles his neck and when Rask finds his ear and whispers, “Galen, I want you, let me suck you,” Galen takes him to bed. 

After that they lie together often, and one morning, as Galen is dressing in his small chamber, Rask says from the bed, “When were you flogged?”

Galen shifts, he’s forgotten about the scars there. It’s been so long since anyone saw him without a shirt.

“I worked ships,” Galen says.

“Did you misbehave?” Rask says. “Because that looks nasty.”

“I did,” says Galen, carelessly.

“Is it a good story. Was it great romance? Did you take the licks to save someone you loved?” 

Galen looks at Rask. There are times when it’s uncanny, times when he thinks Rask might be some kind of demon sent to torment him, or some benevolent creature sent to comfort him. He looks so like Cole and now he’s talking like he knows. But it’s nothing. It’s a coincidence. Rask likes to talk this way, it’s part of his seductive charm.

“The last ship I was on, the captain was a very cruel man,” Galen says.

“I had a customer last week,” says Rask, idly, “who spanked me. I thought it was nice. I might like the lash.”

“We’ll have to sell you to a red house,” says Galen, fastening his breeches.

“I don’t want to be sold. I want to stay with you, at least long enough for you to teach me the skills?”

“The skills?”

“I’ve been asking Misha about you,” Rask says, “I know you’re from Calisto. Trained there. I know you worked ships for ten years. And I’ve lain with you now, so I know for sure how good you are.”

“I’m glad to hear I wasn’t rusty. I haven’t been with anyone since…” Galen tails off.

_Since Cole. Since he pressed himself through the bars of the cell in the brig and begged Cole to fuck him._

Rusk laughs. “You know you’re good. I want you to teach me what you know.”

Galen pauses. He knows that for a lot of men who come to this particular house, lack of skill is part of the appeal. They enjoy a boy who is scared, who gags, even a boy who cries. Nevertheless, Galen thinks, he has had clients like that too. Such things can be faked. Are perhaps better that way.

So Galen says, “Okay. I can show you a few things.”

“Not just me,” says Rask. “You should teach all of us.”

So Galen teaches the boys of the White House some of his skills. How to kiss, how to take a man with one’s mouth, how to move underneath him. How to feign innocence and reluctance. And when one could drop pretence a little take a man’s length right down one’s throat with wide eyed wonderment as if a god given talent had been discovered in that very moment. 

The Grey House became a little better after Galen began to teach. Boys still cried, still returned with bruises and bite marks and even broken bones. Galen still wept some nights for all that he had lost. And still cursed the day he’d ever met Red Cole, but the lives of those boys was a little better for Galen being sold to The Harem of Caen.

And, in time, when he looks at Rask he doesn’t think of Cole. He just sees Rask himself. Beautiful, cocky, funny Rask. Rask with his handsome face and hot body. Rask bobbing on his dick night after night. 

And then a whole year has gone by.

*

When whoring is made illegal in Calisto, Calistans become a rare sight in the Harem of Caen. There are rumours visiting such a place would be seen as a crime when they returned home. 

So Galen is surprised, when he comes down to the receiving room one night, asks after Rask, and Misha says he’s just gone upstairs with a pair of men from his homeland.

Galen looks at the register, checks the names. He doesn’t recognise them. It would be strange if he did. Calisto is a big place. “They seem okay?” Galen says, something is worrying him. Is it the Calistans? Is it Rask? Is it the combination of the two.

“Seemed straight enough,” says Misha. “wanted two on one but Rask can handle that.” As she speaks there’s a thump from above their heads. If could have come from Rask’s pillow room. It isn’t a very unusual thump. But it feels to Galen, like a sign.

“I’m going to check on them,” Galen says.

“Don’t, Galen. Visitors hate that.”

“I’ll just take a quick look. If Rask is being Rask, they’ll barely notice me.”

Galen carefully eases open the door to Rask’s pillow room. He’s done this so many times before. He knows how to crack a door open without disturbing the occupants if they are preoccupied. 

The have Rask over his bed, naked, splayed across it, he’s roped there. They don’t have rope in the pillow rooms at The Grey House. It’s kept in the receiving room. Galen likes to know who is using rope with his boys. But Rask is tied across his bed. On one side of it one of the Calisto men is taking him, the other, on the near side of the bed is using his mouth. Rask is pinned in between them, clearly full of Tiger’s Eye eyes glassy, cheeks flushed. 

As Misha didn’t mention rope or Tiger’s Eye to him, he reckons these Calistans must have brought both themselves. Galen’s heart beats faster as he stares from the doorway.

Everything swims and all Galen can see is a dark haired man lashed in place, helpless, being used as a punishment and a death sentence, by men of the Calisto Empire. He forgets everything, where he is, who he is. He thinks of teeth. He rushes them.

Galen is no fighter, doesn’t have a plan, but he would have hurt them or tried to, if he had needed to, but he doesn’t need to. He takes them by surprise. When he races through the door screaming, ‘stop’, ‘get off him’, ‘leave him’, they jump, springing back. 

Galen stops in the middle of the room. They all stare at each other. The Calistans with breeches round their ankles and hard dicks bobbing, they’re awkward and slightly ashamed.

They yell back, yell, “What the hell?” “What the fuck?”

One of the men fastens his breeches quickly and says, “Who the hell are you.”

“I’m the house mother here, and I never sanctioned that.”

“Sanctioned what? We’re fucking him. What did you think your boys did up here, sweetheart?” says the other man, still by the bed.

“Not like that. Not with rope. We don’t use rope here. This isn’t a red house.”

“He likes it,” says the first man, taking a step closer to Galen. “He likes the rope, doesn’t he?”

The man by the bed taps Rask cheek, “You like it don’t you, baby?” he says to Rask.

Rask lifts his head. He looks at Galen. His eyes are so glassy they look as if they are filled with tears. “I like it,” he slurs.

“He’s full of pleasure drugs,” snarls Galen.

“So what. It’s a party? Join in or fuck off.”

“Join in?” says Galen, bristling all over.

“Sure, why not. Pretty face you got. I wouldn’t mind looking at it over a whore’s back. Wouldn’t mind seeing you undone by pleasure either. And I reckon this boy could get two dicks in his hole so, want to try it?”

On the bed, Rask writhes in the ropes and purrs, “Yes, yes.”

“You want me to fuck him?” Galen spits on the floor. “Like this. Get the fuck out of my house.”

“Listen, mate, we’ve paid. We’ve paid good money for this,” says the man by the bed. 

“I said get out,” says Galen again.

The man by the door calls over to the other, “I think we ought to go,” he says. “I’m not putting up with this. We can make a complaint to the council. The House isn’t fit. Not with a House Mother like you who thinks he’s Red Cole himself.”

“What?” says Galen.

But he’s spoken over by the other man, coming forward, chuckling. “Yeah. Reckon if Red Cole is alive this is where he’d be. House Mother in a fucking Grey House.”

Galen stops the man passing him with a hand on his chest. He notices how muscular the man is when he touches him. How easily this man could pick him up and and throw him downstairs. But he tries to ignore that, this is more important, he says, “Red Cole is alive?”

“What of it?” says the man.

“He probably hasn’t heard,” says the other man behind him, sounding a little softer, “you a Calistan, son?”

“Yeah. What’s the news?”

“Thunder Rebellion are mean to be back. And they’re saying Red Cole survived after all. Didn’t die at Emerald Palace Uprising. Would you fucking believe it. They’re hiding him somewhere. Queece don’t care, of course. You needn’t worry, Red Cole ain’t coming to get you. Red Cole is dead. Thunders are lying.”

Galen set his jaw. “Thunder Rebellion are telling people Red Cole is alive?”

Galen is cold inside.

*

The men from the Empire complain about Galen to the council. Rask, even when the drugs are out of his system says everything was fine, and he can’t understand why Galen came in yelling like that. Misha deals with the situation. And all through it, Galen sits on the settle in the receiving room and thinks to himself.

_If it isn’t a secret that Cole is dead, why is he trapped here? Why can’t he go home?_

It’s almost dawn when Misha sits down opposite him by the fire, puts a glass of green tonic into his hand and says, “Well, we’re going to be fined 500 silver by the council for that.”

“Oh,” says Galen. “That sounds like a lot.”

“It is. But the council fine hard for what you did. I’ve told you before, The Harem puts the visitors first. If a visitor has the silver they can get whatever they want. Those men had paid. You had no right interrupting them.”

“They brought their own rope,” Galen says.

“The council don’t care about things like that,” says Misha.

“So what happens to me?” says Galen. “Will the council punish me?”

“No. The council fine the house. The house owner will usually punish any slave who’s caused them to be fined.”

“So you’re going to punish me?” Galen says, blankly.

“I don’t own this house, Galen.”

“Who does own this house?” Galen says, realising this is the first time he’s bothered to ask who owns _him_.

Misha takes a breath. “Galen, The Grey House is owned by The Thunder Rebellion.”

Galen almost drops his glass. “What? The Thunder Rebellion own a house in The Harem of Caen? They own _this_ house?”

“They own three actually. The three I run for them. So, although The Rebellion are very clear that I ought to keep all the council’s rules. I doubt you’ll be punished by them.”

“I’ve already taken a flogging for one of them. They owe me,” Galen says, darkly. “But I don’t understand. Why do The Thunder Rebellion own houses here? In Caen?”

“Why wouldn’t they? Think about it Galen. Who do you think funds The Thunder Rebellion? Their army of men and their ships and their hide outs in the mountains and on Sapsand. You think a bunch of goathears and shepherds in the Empire do all that? People who are barely above starvation?”

“They’re funded by Caen?”

“Of course they’re funded by Caen. Caen who have a land border with the empire all along the salt mountains? Caen who take the brunt of the empire’s slaving raids? Caen who the empire would probably have invaded by now if they weren’t scared of magic and dealing with assassination attempts by Thunder Rebellion.”

“Oh,” says Galen into his glass, his head is spinning, then he remembers this evening’s earlier revelation. “Thunder Rebellion are telling people Cole is alive.”

“Yes,” says Misha, “I know. Plans change. Cole is popular and enough time has passed since the uprising. The notion he survived is giving people hope.”

“But if Cole being alive isn’t a great secret anymore why can’t I go home?”

“I don’t know,” says Misha. “The Rebellion still want to keep hold of you.”

“Can you ask him? You must be in touch with them if they run this place. Can you get a message to him? Ask him while I’m still being kept here?”

“He can’t come here,” says Misha. “His location is secret. The whole Empire are hunting him now they know he lives.”

“I don’t want him to come here. Make sure that’s in the message. I never want to see him again. But I want to know why I’m still a prisoner.”


	5. The Harem of Caen 2

Rask leaves in the summer. 

Lord Urd is one of the King’s advisors. He’s always liked the Grey House and he’s become one of Rask’s regulars. It isn’t a shock when Rask tells Galen that Urd has asked to buy his contract. 

“He’s rich,” Rask says, wide eyed. “He’s rich and he’s old. He says if I serve him until he dies he’ll free me in his will and leave me some coin.”

“I hope he keeps his word,” Galen says. And although it breaks him a little inside to see Rask go, he is happy someone has escaped The Harem.

*

Sometimes the house is quiet. It’s rare but it happens. Sometimes every boy is allocated a visitor or sleeping and Misha is in one of her other houses and Galen gets a moment to clean the fire grates or even just sit and catch his breath.

When the bell rings he hesitates. If this is a customer he’ll have to wake one of the three sleeping boys. None of them have been resting much more than an hour. But a house can be fined if the bell is not answered promptly. 

So he opens the door. 

The man outside is wearing a hooded cape, his face his half hidden. It makes no difference. Galen would know him in a coal cellar at night. 

Galen takes a step back, “No,” he says. “No. Not you. I don’t want to see you. I said, I didn’t want you to come here.”

Cole pushes the hood down. “Galen please. I don’t have long and I took a great risk to come here. I need to explain.”

He looks the same. His face still the most beautiful face Galen has ever seen. He can’t look away, can’t turn away. Every feeling he ever had about Cole rushes back, so fast he feels like the doorstep might vanish from under him.

“Come in,” he says. “You can come in.”

Cole looks anxiously around the receiving room. “Can we go somewhere private.”

“No,” says Galen. “I have to stay here. I’m working. You got me a job, remember.”

Cole sits down on the chair by the fire. He looks well. His skin is darker and his body better toned than Galen has ever seen. “I hear from Misha sometimes. How you are. That you’re doing well. You’ve made the boys lives much better she says. You truly care for them.”

“I don’t care what you think about it,” Galen snaps. “And I don’t want you asking Misha about me.”

“If you wish I will not ask after you again. Won’t you sit down, Galen?”

“So you’re not here to rescue me?” says Galen, speaking harshly, nevertheless, obediently taking a seat. “You’re not here to take me away from this place?”

“No,” says Cole. “No I’m not. I just wanted to see you.”

“Here I am,” says Galen, leaning forward and throwing his arms wide. “Right where you sent me. Where I am your prisoner.”

“You’re not my… I’m sorry,” says Cole. “I don’t know what I expected. Please don’t be like this. I really wanted to see you.”

Galen can’t keep his anger in after that. He stands, crosses the room in two quick steps and slaps Cole’s face. “Fuck you,” he says.“I wanted to see you too. I wanted to see you so many times. But I didn’t have the option of putting on a cloak and turning up on your doorstep, did I?”

Cole touches his cheek. “Please believe me, nor did I. This is not something I have been able to do before now. And even now, it’s a risk, but I came because I was concerned you had heard things about me and I wanted you to know the truth.”

“So you’re worried I may have found out that Thunder Rebellion are now spreading the rumour that you are alive, and yet because I know you’re alive I have to be shut up here for the rest of my life, and you’re worried what I might think about that. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you then. I think you’re a lying piece of shit. I think you sent me here for no good reason and now I’m rotting here and you’ve forgotten me and I’ll never get home.”

“I would never forget you. And Calisto’s not a place you would want to return to, Galen. Not now.”

“It is my home. Parim is there,” Galen says, sitting back down.

“Why would I send you here if I didn’t have to? What would I gain from it? You know how I feel about you.”

“Do I? How do you feel about me?”

“I, I have feelings for you. I think about you.”

“Good.” There are tears in Galen’s eyes. “But you’re not here to take me away with you.”

“No. I can’t. Galen you’d be in so much danger. I have to move from place to place constantly. Letting the empire know I’m alive has come at a great cost. And that is a cost to you as well as me.”

“What has it to do with me?”

“You know how the empire’s inquisitors work. I told you. If you have someone you care about they’ll use that. You, what you are to me, it still puts you at risk. You’re safe here.”

“You think I’d rather be safe than free?”

“You don’t know what your asking for.” 

“I’m not a child, Red Cole.” 

Cole winces. “It’s not up to me, in any case. I want you here, yes, but even if I didn’t, The Thunder Rebellion would never let me take you away. I’m a very useful tool in what’s coming. People follow me. Even now, for people joining the Rebellion, the rumour I’m alive gives them hope. Getting to meet me, find out if I’m real, is a recruitment tool. But, in truth, I’m barely more than a chattel. They need me controlled and they know that if anyone found you. If anyone took you, hurt you, I’d, well, they wouldn’t be able to control me then. Calisto could use you as a lure to capture me. Because I’d always come for you. I’d always rescue you.”

“Rescue me now,” Galen says, sourly.

“This is rescue, Galen. You must be kept secure. This is the best place for you. Everyone agrees.”

“Everyone? No one asked me.”

“Galen, please, you remember when I was on Bright Flame, despite everything, I knew there was a plan to save me, I just had to stay alive. That’s what I want from you now. Just stay alive. Stay alive, stay here and I will come for you.”

“Don’t. Don’t bother.”

“Please, Galen. Please. I risked everything for this.”

“Did you. Couldn’t you have put all that in a letter?”

“Letter’s get incepted.” 

“You could have sent someone. Misha.”

“Too dangerous.”

“Or Bird, right? Someone like that. The one who spoke to me on your behalf when I was in the brig and you were in the captain’s cabin.”

“I was unconscious while you were in the brig. I’m sorry they put you in there. I didn’t tell them to do that.”

“You were unconscious? You just said, don’t kill him before you passed out I suppose?”

“More or less. Galen, I was barely alive last time you saw me.”

Galen has to take a deep breath to stop himself crying. He can’t think about that, taht broken version of Cole. “Why did you come here, Cole? What are you doing?”

“I told you, I wanted to see you?”

“Why. Were you hoping I would lie with you?”

“No. I don’t do that. I can’t, anymore.”

Galen is strangely disappointed when Cole says this. He knows it shows on his face and he doesn’t care, he says, “I remember when you begged me to kiss you?”

“You know that was because of a drug they’d given me,” Cole says tightly.

“I have some. If that’s what’s required to make you treat me like a human being. I have Tiger’s Eye.” He points to one of the jars on the mantle. 

“Is that what you want? You want me to take Tiger’s Eye for you. So I beg for your dick. Would that seem like a reasonable penance for what I’ve done to you?”

Galen doesn’t answer. The bell rings again and he says, “I have to get that. Do you need me to hide you?”

Cole nods, urgent, snapping out of that teasing infuriating mode of his and into something else. Business. Practicality. “Yes. Quickly.”

“My room is at the top of the stairs. The first door. You’ll know it. It’s small, narrow bed.” 

Cole nods again, Galen hears him on the stairs as he goes for the door.

It’s Misha. She has a couple of boys with her. They mind the receiving room together for a while. Several visitors turn up and one of the sleeping boys is woken. After an hour, Misha and tells Galen he looks tired and ought to retire. She’ll mind the house for a while. Galen nods, grateful to go upstairs and check on Cole. When he does he notices that the jars of Tiger’s Eye and Black Root are gone.

He races up the stairs.

Cole is on his bed. Galen’s jaw drops open in the doorway. He’s naked and he’s hard and he’s writhing against the sheet. “This bed smells like you,” he says dreamily. “I’ve missed you so much.” Galen stares.

On the floor beside the bed are both jars. Empty.

“You didn’t,” says Galen.

“I wanted to show you what you mean to me,” says Cole. Then he moans out loud and arches his back, overwhelmed. “God, it feels so good. This is more than before. More intense. I feel like I’ll die if you don’t touch me. Please Galen, please, make love to me.”

Galen is sickened by this. What’s Cole’s done feels so wrong, so unforgivable, but he can’t look away. Cole, naked on his bed, wanting him. He’s dreamed of this. And the reality of it, seeing it. Galen feels his dick stiffen in his breeches. He can’t remember ever wanting anything so much. But he has to resist. He means to resist. 

He takes a breath. “You took it all. Cole, this is a pillow house. Do you have any idea how much Tiger’s Eye we keep ready.”

“I had to show you Galen. I had to show you I’d do anything for you.” Cole arches and bucks his hips. His dick is iron hard, pressed to his flat belly and dripping. “I don’t remember this effect,” he gasps, glazing a hand over it.

“That’s the Black Root. The amount you took, your dick’ll be like iron for hours yet. You shouldn’t mix them, one’s for being under and the other is for being the lord. Tiger’s Eye,” Galen makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger, “and Black Root.” He raises a forearm, his hand a fist. He’s just shown Cole how he teaches the boys to remember which pleasure drug is which. 

Cole laughs, “So what happens to me now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps I can fuck myself,” gasps Cole, almost sounding as if he wants to.

“I don’t care. Cole, I never meant for you to…”

He doesn’t finish what he’s saying because Cole moves, moves in a way he’s never seen before. Cole is up, off the bed, across the small room, holding Galen by the shoulders and tearing him out of the doorway, pressing him up against the wall. Beside Galen, the door slams shut.

Cole's naked body presses into Galen’s. His hard cock there, driving into his hip.

“Cole,” Galen whispers out on a moan. “Cole, please.” He’s half terrified by how strong he is. He couldn’t get out of Cole’s grip if he tried.

“Got my strength back,” Cole whispers. “Even doped like this I can beat you. Do you like it? I want you to like it. I want you to want me like I want you.”

Galen’s voice is half a choke when he says, “Cole, I do. You know I do.”

“I won’t force you Galen. Truly, this stuff I’ve taken has made me feel like I will catch fire if I don’t make love to you, but if you say no, now, I will leave. I am sure I will find somewhere in this town to relieve this,” he drags his dick across Galen’s groin. “Say it now if you want to say it, say no.”

Galen says in a low tiny voice. “I can’t say no to you. Never could.”

“What do you want. I’ll do anything. I want to please you.” Cole’s voice is half breath, trailing into moans, his hips and grinding against Galen’s.

Galen says, slowly, “I want you to beg me to kiss you. Like you did before.”

Cole smiles. “Galen,” he murmurs, their lips are less than a hair apart, “please kiss me. I think about you kissing me all the time. When you kissed your seed from me through the bars of that cell on Bright Flame I thought I was going to die from wanting you. I feel like I could beg you to kiss me for the rest of my life.”

Galen’s hips are grinding back now, moving against Cole. Galen is getting hard. He looks at Cole’s wide blue-black eyes. 

He’d love to punish Cole. He’d love to refuse him. Send him away with nothing. He surely deserves it. But the thought of it, of lying here alone in his bed knowing Cole is out in the Harem of Caen, wired out of his mind on pleasure drugs, desperate for someone to touch him, is unbearable. So Galen, though he shouldn’t, leans forward and he kisses Cole.

Like every other time he’s kissed Cole, the tiny handful of times, sparks shoot through him. He’s moaning into Cole’s mouth, panting and desperate. Cole drives forward, presses him harder to the wall, feels like he is pinning him in place with his mouth, hot, blood overheated from the drugs.

“You were right. This is why I came,” Cole hisses between his lips, “I didn’t know if it could happen. But I thought if I came to see you, it might.”

“It might if you swallowed every pleasure drug in the place.”

“You know this isn’t just the drugs. You know what you do to me,” Cole says, pushing forward harder, kissing him deeper and deeper.

They make it to the tiny bed. Galen says, “Let me. I want it to be me this time,” and gets Cole onto his back, climbing on top and pecking down his chest in kisses. Galen is naked now. Both of them together, naked, in a bed. Neither of them in cage.

Galen moves his lips and kisses the tip of Cole’s bucking dick. Cole’s looking up at him, eyes lidded, slightly dazed. As Galen looks back at him, he says, suddenly lucid, “You’re going to be really good at this, aren’t you?” He bucks his hips up on a craving moan. “You’re going to ruin me.”

Galen slides his mouth over the tip of Cole’s dick again. “It would be quite something if this was what finally did it.”

Cole laughs, but his laughs crack into moans as the drugs take him back, “Galen, don’t tease please, I feel like I’m dying. Suck me. Fuck. Suck me.”

Galen moves his mouth over Cole’s dick, but he doesn’t suck. He let’s his breath move over it, hot and damp. Cole jerks up with a whine of frustration.

“Galen,” Cole whines again and his hands reach for Galen’s hair, like he’s going to pull Galen onto his dick. 

“Don’t,” Galen says, catching one of his wrists and placing it down on the bed. “Don’t do that. Take what I give you, I know what I’m doing.”

“Galen,” whines Cole again, but he puts both hands down and lets Galen, softly gently, take the whole length of him down his throat. 

Galen holds him there, feels the whole of Cole in his throat, blocking his air and making his eyes prickle. He keeps it there, still as long as he can, like he wants to die here. Like if he can hold Cole’s dick right back in his throat long enough they’ll never be parted again.

But he does move, in the end he does, he slips back up Cole’s dick, hears him beg, a chattering, desperate noise and slips down again. Sets a slow pace that builds, stops and starts when the rhythm feels predictable. Doesn’t let Cole quite get a sense of what he’s going to do next until Cole is keening mess under him. 

That’s when he slips a hand up, presses two fingers into Cole’s mouth and has him suck them, matching the pace he’s setting on Cole’s dick. Once they’re wet he brings them down again and slides them under Cole and inside him, presses carefully into his hole and Cole screams, overwhelmed by pleasure. The walls of him pulse on Galen’s fingers. 

It won’t be long now. Galen sucks harder and moves faster, his throat feels like hot oiled glass. He presses his fingers over the little lump of smooth flesh he finds inside Cole. He matches up every part of what he’s doing and he forces and orgasm out of Cole so intense that there’s a viciousness to it. Cole screams and jerks like he’s going to snap in half.

For a while there’s breathing. Galen pulls his fingers out of Cole and lets Cole clean them with his mouth. Still, they don’t speak. 

It feels like they are suspended in time, hanging in space. That they could stay like this, held like this forever. That nothing would ever change so long as neither of them move or speak. Galen shifts a little. His dick is so hard. Cole makes a tiny moan and shifts, still wanton from the drugs in his system.

And the peace breaks with a the bell ringing downstairs.

Cole sits up, alert and awake, “It’s them.”

“It’s who? How do you know who it is?”

“Thunder. They were three hours behind me.”

“How could you know that?”

“I know how long it would be until they’d have noticed me gone. And I know how they track. It’d take them three hours to get to me here.”

Galen gasps. “You took all those drugs knowing they were after you.” Although, looking at Cole now, Galen can’t see a trace of those drugs in him.

“Yes,” Cole breathes, “you always make me sloppy. And they can’t find me in your bed.”

“Why? Aren’t they on our side?”

“They can’t know I came for you. It’s too dangerous. You’re too important.” Cole is on his feet now, pulling on breeches over his hard dick. He glances around, but there’s only the window. He’s at it in a moment, pulling it open.

“Cole please. You’re in no state to…”

But Cole is crouching in the window now. “Listen to me, Galen. They won’t know what house I’ve gone to. They’ll be trying here first because of you. But Misha never saw me and that might be enough for them. Where’s the nearest Red House?”

“Three down,” says Galen, “Why?”

“Because that’s where they’ll look next. And where they’ll find me.”

“Really. In a Red House?”

“Of course. Why do you think I’m called Red Cole?” Cole grins. “Stay alive, Galen. Please, try not to hate me. I will come for you. I swear.”

And he’s gone. 

*

Galen hears from Misha, the story of how Cole snuck into The Harem of Caen and was found having an amazing time, tied to a punishment frame in the Red House three doors away. She tells this story with a smile, like this is typical of Red Cole. This is what he does. Feats of ridiculous daring, just to indulge a hedonistic whim. 

Galen finds he smiles at it too.

But Cole never comes back for Galen.

*

Galen works at the Grey House for another five years. So long he feels he will be buried there. 

And then someone does come back for him.

Rask.

Lord Urd did as he promised. He died and left Rask his freedom and a large amount of silver. Enough silver that he could buy Galen’s contract. 

Misha took some persuading of course. The Thunder Rebellion might have left her alone to run her houses how she wishes for the last two years, more concerned with a battle they were raging in Salt Mountains, but selling Galen was not something they would sanction. 

But Galen and Rask persuaded her. They had the money to pass it all with the council. And legally, a visitors who had enough silver to buy a pleasure slave was within their rights to insist. Visitors get to buy whatever they want in The Harem of Caen.

“I could complain to the council?” Rask chirps. 

“Galen isn’t really a pleasure slave. I don’t think you’re meant to be able to buy the house mother.”

“Don’t Thunder Rebellion insist you keep the council’s laws?” says Galen.

So it was agreed. Where all of Galen’s persuasion had failed to win his freedom, Rask’s coin had. The papers where signed and Galen left the Harem of Caen in a carriage with Rask. After seven years. Finally free.


	6. The Isle of Stars 1

When Rask asks Galen where he wants to go he knows he should say Pithiya, should finally make it back to Parim, seven years late. But he pauses and decides that first, they ought to go to the Isle of Stars. It was where he was headed after all.

It isn’t a long journey. Rask’s coin buys them passage on a ship from Disran and they spend a lot of the journey in their cabin. Rask is sick the first day. Galen makes him drink lemon water and chew ginger root, and it isn’t long before he’s back to his usual self, walking around half naked, cajoling Galen for every minute he wastes not fucking.

There are a couple of moments when it hits him hard, being on a ship with Rask who looks so like Cole. On night they’re up on deck and it’s quiet and Rask kisses Galen, snuggles close, hands slipping up under his shirt and he says, “There’s no one to see. You should fuck me up here.”

Galen feels a cold rush. “No,” he says. “Not up here.”

“Why not,” says Rask, pulling away. “We could…” he steps into the shadows and Galen can’t see him for a second. He moves forward and realises Rask has draped himself over the top of a run barrel. “Like this,” he says, looking back at Galen, squirming a little, moving his arse like an invitation.

For a second Galen can’t move. “No,” he says after a long pause. “It’s too cold up here. Let’s go inside.”

*

When they arrive on The Isle of Stars, Galen discovers Parim is dead. 

The pillow house where he was meant to have worked for six months, seven years ago, is still in business. He calls in and finds Parim had written to him before he received the news Bright Flame had been lost. And the house, unsure what else to do, had kept those letters. He takes them to a tavern and reads them with a glass of green tonic. There are two letters of sweet words about how missed he is. 

But there is another letter. 

The third letter is from Parim’s sister. Written not long after he ought to have returned to Pithiya. She writes that she hopes he hasn’t left yet, that this letter reaches him before he considers returning to the Calisto Empire.

Seven years ago, Parim’s sister was sure the empire was close to making Galen’s profession illegal. Galen nods at the words, she was right. That news had made it to him in Caen. What Galen hadn’t heard was what else had changed. That gangs of enforcers walked the streets of Pithiya unchecked, beating people they considered guilty of the new crimes. The new crimes included more than just whoring, following most religions, alcohol and sodomy were also now illegal. And those suspected of committing those crimes, were risking their lives walking the streets. 

Parim, a known sodomite, was cornered by a gang and beaten to death. Executed as a deviant of the empire. 

Galen stares at the letter. Rask, who has been chatting, playing the bar, finding people to flirt with, saunters over while Galen is still pale with shock. 

“What is it?” he says.

Galen pushes the pages over the table.

Rask reads through them and all he says is, “I guess we won’t be going to see your homeland any time soon then.”

Galen is an exile.

*

Rask decides they should use Urd’s money to buy a tavern of their own. Galen isn’t sure. A tavern was his plan with Parim and he feel’s guilty considering it so soon with someone else. When he tells Rask this, Rask points out that Parim has actually been dead for years. 

And Galen can’t think of anything else to do.

Before long, they run a tavern with a small pillow house, just as Galen had always planned. Rask does more pillow duties that Galen. Galen finds he is happier only taking customers upstairs if he really likes them. When he remembers working ships, taking 5, 6 men a night, he can’t remember how he did it. He had been so young then.

Years turn. The climate on The Isle of Stars is pleasant. The summers are warmer than in Pithiya and the winters are wet but not cold. The Isle of Stars is a boomtown. It’s the only place where the Calisto Empire trades with the far north of the northern lands. With the Nether Edge. A tiny country in the far tip, Bow, sitting right on the edge of the diamond mountains, right in fey country, has refined its magical orbs and Calisto is buying up as many of them as it can get, which means trading on The Isle of Stars, which means a busy expanding port and and lots and lots of passing trade.

Galen and Rask make coin and are happy. No matter how many sailors Rask has taken to bed he is always keen to get on his knees for Galen at the end of the day. And sometimes Galen wonders however things worked out so well for him. Asks himself, if there is anything more in this world he could ever want. 

And if a small distant voice inside him has an answer, he doesn’t listen.

Although, there are nights when Rask has dark moods. Sometimes he asks about Parim a little jealousy, does Galen still think about him, would Galen had gone back to him if he was alive, even, if Parim walked in right now, who would Galen choose? Galen answers evasively. He doesn’t know the answers. And he reminds himself that Rask is still young, although Rask is no longer the boy Galen met in The Harem of Caen. Rask is now older then Galen was on Bright Flame.

One day a fight breaks out in the tavern. It isn’t serious and Galen manages to calm the situation and chase out the aggressor. A woman who was standing near to fight was hit in the face with broken glass. Galen takes her into the storeroom and clean and fixes up the wounds, and when he’s done she says, “Are you a healer?”

When Galen shakes his head, she says, “Perhaps you should be.”

Galen takes her advice. He offers healing in the tavern, using the skill he picked up as a house mother. He learns more when he can from traders who pass through the port. The Tavern becomes an apothecary. Rask manages appointments. Galen become more of a healer than a whore.

The pox comes one winter. It isn’t the worst kind, but it’s a danger to the very old and the very young. Galen works at night, rushing out to houses where people are worried about loved ones, advising on steam and herbs. 

And he never thought he’d hear that voice again. 

But even while he’s sleeping after a working through the night, even through the closed bedroom door, he hears him and knows him and when he does, ten long years fall away.

He listens to a voice saying, “I need to see him today. I will not be on the island long. I can’t stay. Please. Just little of his time.” And it’s as if it has only been a moment since he was standing in his tiny room in The Grey House, watching Cole climb out of his window. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Rask replies. “We’ve had a pox on the Island and Mr Galen is very skilled. He sees no one in the daytime when he’s worked the night.”

Cole’s breath is uneven, Galen can tell even through the closed door. That familiar frustration. Doesn’t he always know best? Doesn’t he hate it when people don’t step up and step in line? “I assure you,” he presses out, “Mr Galen would want you to wake him up for me.”

“I don’t think so,” says Rask, sweetly. “He will happily see you this evening, I am very sure. Or perhaps you could see me. What service do you require? Healing or pleasure?”

“Neither. And it has to be him. And I won’t be here this evening.”

Before Rask can reply, Galen pulls open the door to his chamber. “It’s okay, Rask,” he says. “It’s okay. He’s right. I will see him.” Galen hopes he’s hiding the way his heart has stopped at the sight of him. At the way he’s hardly changed. “I’ll see him right now. Hello, Cole.”

“Hello Galen.”

Galen swallows. Just the way he says that name. It means the world. Ten years since he saw him. Five in the Harem since he leapt from that window. Five more on The Isle of Stars. 

Ten years. He looks the same. 

Ten years. 

“Come in.”

As Cole passes him, Galen looks at Rask, suspicious in the room beyond. He tries to give him an apologetic look, but he says, “Cancel tonight’s appointments,” closing the chamber door before Rask can reply.

Breathing, unable for a moment to even look at Cole, Galen presses his back to the closed door. 

When he does look up, Cole is sat on his bed, looking wary and beautiful and worn, looking like he isn’t sure what Galen will do. Galen isn’t sure what he’ll do. He finds himself saying, “What are you doing here, Cole? Were you suddenly overwhelmed with the need to fuck me? You do know I’m a whore, don’t you? If you want fuck me just make an appointment. It’s forty silvers.”

“I don’t… I’m not here for that, Galen. I just wanted to see you. I wanted to know you were safe. Misha told us you’d left. I wanted to check you hadn’t tried to go back to Calisto.”

“That was five years ago. I left five years ago.”

“It took some time to find you. I’m sorry.”

“And before that, there were five years where you knew exactly where I was.”

“Again. I am sorry. I wanted to see you. I couldn’t risk it. Please. I just need to know you’re not going to try and go back.”

“No. No I’m not. I’m not going to try and go back to Calisto. So you’re done.”

When Cole looks at Galen then, he looks anything but done. “Galen, I know it’s been a long time. It’s not that I didn’t want you. Didn’t think of you. Didn’t think fondly of those hours we had together. So, so often.” 

“You were drugged out of your mind and it wasn’t even a whole hour,” Galen says bitterly. He’s still in his bed shirt. His legs are bare. He feels vulnerable like this. Being vulnerable in front of Cole is both sickening and a dark thrill he tries to ignore.

“I’m sorry I’d do anything to give you more, to have given you more. But I can’t. I have, I have duties. We’re fighting a war now.”

“A war,” Galen spits that. “Your war. A war you can’t win. A war Caen is paying you to fight to keep Calisto from invading. What are you even doing? Is it doing any good? Helping anyone? Because as far as I can tell Calisto is worse than it ever was.” 

“Galen, please. You know we have to fight.”

“Do you?”

“What do you suggest I do? Leave Thunder Rebellion and come set up a whore house with you?”

Galen shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”

Cole almost smiles at that, smiles like Galen is a child who just asked him to stop work and pretend to have a tea party with him. “Really? That’s what you want. You and me? Together? In a little house on an island. The empire would find us, you know they would. They’d come for us.”

“Yes, Cole, maybe they would,” says Galen, finally peeling himself off the door and approaching the bed. “Maybe they wouldn’t. And maybe we’d only have a year together before they did. I’d take that Cole,” he says as he sits down next to Cole and takes his hand. “I’d take a year. I’d take a night.”

“You’d have me as your lover?” says Cole. “Even now?”

“Yes,” Galen says, slowly. “I hate this truth, but yes. It’s always been you, Cole.”

“What about your boy? The one that wouldn’t let me in. He shares your bed, doesn’t he?”

Galen ignores the guilt that prickles at him as he says, “We’d work it out.” Knowing they couldn’t, knowing how much of a betrayal this would be to Rask.

“He looks like me,” Cole says, smiling slightly.

His smile reopens a crack in Galen. One that never really closes. “I know that.”

Cole turns Galen’s hand over in his own. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” says Galen, “but it’s different. Not like with you.”

They sit in silence. And then Cole lifts Galen’s hand to his own mouth and kisses the knuckles, slowly, almost like he’s exploring something. Galen’s breath catches in his throat. Cole pauses, lips on Galen’s skin and looks at him. 

“Is this okay?” Cole whispers, “Can I touch you.”

“You can do anything to me,” Galen says. 

Cole starts to unbutton Galen’s shirt. The silence between them buzzes as the buttons fall open. It’s a little cold in the room, but Galen doesn’t really feel it. “Oh Galen,” Cole says as the shirt slips open to Galen’s naval. “You’re so beautiful. The first time I saw you I thought I was delirious.”

Galen, even lost in the sensations of Cole touching his body, manages, “You probably were.” 

“Perhaps, but I remember everything about being on that ship. Normally I’d want to forget something like that. I’d try to. But I can’t. I remember every detail of those weeks because I can’t bear to forget you.” Cole’s fingertips graze Galen’s nipples. “You know, when that was happening to me, I nearly lost myself. I would have lost myself without you. I’d be there, on deck, being raped, being beaten and when my consciousness swam away, I’d think, if I could survive, just live through another night, I’d see your face. I’d see your face again.”

Galen is lost in the touches of Cole’s fingers on his skin, skating over his collar bone.

Cole puts a hand on Galen’s shoulder, slips it over to stroke the scars on his back. “You must know, while you wear those marks on your body, you know I am in your debt.”

Galen feels tears prickle in his eyes. He looks back at Cole. “What does that even mean?”

“Shush. Don’t,” Cole whispers. “Just let me be with you. Just let me be with you.”

Galen can’t think. Those hands on him. That voice. He’s waited so long for him. He’s waited so long. “You know sometimes,” he says, “I think about that night in the brig.”

“So do I,” Cole with the return of a familiar bounce to his voice.

“Not when we were together,” Galen says, breathy now from how Cole is touching his body. “Not that. I think about how much I hated you. How angry I was with you for sending me to The Harem of Caen. But if you’d let me go the way I wanted, let me go work The Isle of Stars and then travel back to Calisto, I’d be dead now. I’d have died with Parim.”

“So you forgive me.” Cole’s fingers are stroking one of Galen’s nipples now, making it peak, making him gasp.

“No,” he says, half breath, “You abandoned me for ten years.” 

“What if I made up for it,” Cole’s words are breath too.

“How?”

“What if I gave you all the kisses I should have given you over ten years.”

A moment hangs between them, then breaks like glass. 

Cole throws Galen down on the bed and is on him, the whole length of Cole’s body pressing down on him, pining him. Galen’s body is a little softer than it was, but Cole’s is the same, muscular and hard. Galen gasps at the feel of him, the long press of Cole’s clothed body against his near naked one, at Cole’s tongue, at a kiss like drowning.

Cole kisses his mouth, hard and long. His face is rougher than Rask’s. He nuzzles into Galen’s neck, scrapes the flesh there, and Galen arches, keening, “Please-please, please-please.”

“Galen,” Cole returns. “Galen, Galen.”

“Cole,” Galen murmurs, lips on Cole’s ear. “Cole, fuck me. I’ve waited so long for you, please fuck me.”

Cole kisses his throat. “Galen, I can’t, you know I can’t.”

“What?” Galen stops, finding Cole’s eye. “Really?”

“Yes, really? I told you. I told you on Bright Flame.”

Galen stares at him. “That was twelve years ago.”

“Yes,” says Cole, sitting back astride Galen’s hips. “The only time I’ve been with anyone since then is that time with you in The Harem. And then I’d…”

“You’d taken all those drugs.”

“Yes.”

Galen doesn’t know what to say. And then he says, “I have some black root. In the apothecary stores.”

“Do you want that? If that’s what you want.”

“I never wanted that.”

“No,” Cole’s voice is small and flat. He always knew that. He’s still on top of Galen, still looking down at him, but everything about that feels different. “I can’t fuck you, Galen. I’m sorry. He took that from me. He took you from me.”

“No. No, Cole.” Galen touches Cole’s waist. “That didn’t… Fry didn’t…” Galen pauses, thinking what to say, what he wants, “You don’t have to fuck me. That’s not what I need from you. I just need you to… Just stay. Just stay with me.”

Galen watches Cole as he hears that, as he wonders what it might mean. Cole says, “Alright, Galen. I’ll stay. I’ll give you that night. If that’s what you want? I’ll give you a night.”

“I told you,” says Galen. “I’ll take a night.”

Cole rolls off him them, lies next to him and pulls Galen to him. Holds him close. Galen’s head on his heart. They lie like that for a while, not speaking. Galen can’t think what to say. 

Cole says, “You know, it never mattered to me, how I was, except when it came to you.” He strokes Galen’s face. “I wish I could be with you the way you want me to.”

“Cole,” Galen says, “you know, there are other things, don’t you? There are other things we can do together.”

“Like what,” says Cole, in a voice that betrays that, of course, he knows what. That he has spent some time considering what he could do with Galen. But he waits to be invited. 

Galen is happy to invite him. He takes Cole’s hand and slips it down his own body, past the hem of his shirt and up again, he’s bare underneath. “You could,” Galen gasps as Cole’s hand grazes the tip of his dick. “You could touch me here.”

Cole gasps like Galen’s put his hand in the fire. Cole’s hand lies on top of Galen’s dick and Cole’s voice cracks with need. “Galen. Oh. Let me touch you. Please let me. Let me give you this.”

“Cole,” Galen says, “you know you can.” He puts both arms around Cole’s neck. He looks Cole in the eyes. He feels as open, as giving and vulnerable as he ever has with his body. Because this, lying with Cole, letting Cole touch him, is more of a sacrifice than he’s made to any of the men who have been inside his body. What he has to do after this will hurt all the more for allowing Cole this, but he will, he will allow it.

Cole’s hand curls around Galen’s dick, which stiffens fully into it, quickly enough to make Galen arch. _Cole’s hand_. Galen thinks of the first time he saw that hand. Bruised bloody fingers, shaking as it took the canteen from him through the bars of a cage. 

“Let me give you this,” Cole mutters. “Just, god, let me touch you.”

And Galen is lost to it, lost to a pleasure. Lost to the knowledge that this tis he best he’ll ever have, the best he’ll ever feel. And even while he’s in it, keening and thrusting into Cole’s hand, he can already taste the sorrow he’ll feel when it’s over.

When he comes, even right in the eye of pleasure, he wants to cry. 

Cole raises his hand to his own mouth. He licks Galen’s seed away from his fingers while Galen watches, eyes glass, breath gone. When that hand is clean, Cole uses it to stroke Galen’s face, to press two fingers into his mouth.

When he pulls those fingers away, Galen says, “You’re going to leave aren’t you? You’re about to leave?”

“I said I’d give you the night.”

“The whole night?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell me things about yourself?”

“Like what?”

Cole strokes Galen’s jaw. “Tell me about your family.”

“Okay,” Galen says, surprised, by this but it feels good and comforting. “I grew up in Yarran. My father had two wives. He wanted a third but he couldn’t afford it. He could barely afford the family he had. I’m the eighth child of thirteen.”

“Big family,” says Cole, absently, stroking Galen’s stomach. 

“Yes. The kind of family where they are looking for ways to get their children out of the house and fed by someone else.”

“So they sent you to be trained as a whore at nine?”

Galen pauses at that, struck by the fact Cole remembers what age he was when he went into training, that he remembers a conversation they had so long ago. “Yes. But it wasn’t… I didn’t mind it. The training house was good, people were kind.”

“Did you see your family after you left?”

“Of course I did. I used to travel to see them every year. Every year until…” And then he stops. There it is.

“Until I sent you to The Harem of Caen.”

“Yes.” There’s a bitter note in Galen’s voice. He doesn’t bother to hide it.

When Cole replies, he sounds desperate. “But it worked. Like you said. If you’d gone back… Sending you there. It kept you safe. You have to admit it. You are safe. You are still alive. If you just stay alive I…”

Galen places a finger on Cole’s lips. It’s time now. It’s time to tell him. “No. Cole. Don’t. I don’t want your kind of safety anymore. I’ve been safe, but it’s cost me too much. I don’t want to just stay alive waiting for you. I want a real life, and if you can’t be in it, you don’t get to be in it. I need you to promise me something, this time, when you leave, if you leave, before morning, you don’t come back. No checking on me, no rescuing me. If you leave before morning I never want to see you again.

“I understand,” says Cole softly. “Whatever you wish.”

They talk some more before they sleep, but after that it’s different, heavy with the weight of the end. 

In the morning, Cole is gone.


	7. The Isle of Stars 2

Galen gets up and walks into the small receiving room where Rask makes appointments, but Rask isn’t in there. He goes into the main room of tavern, where three of their men are setting up to open. No one has seen Rask. He checks all the pillow rooms upstairs, but they’re empty. 

Rask doesn’t return until Galen is alone, closing up the tavern for the night. It’s late and he’s tired. He stares at Rask, swaying slightly in the doorway, unsure, quite, what to say.

“Don’t look like that,” says Rask. 

“Where’ve you been?” says Galen.

“Been where I want,” says Rask, coming in, walking straight through the tavern room and into Rask and Galen’s private quarters. 

Galen locks the doors and races after him, finds him lying in their bed. Lying right on those sheets where he was lying with Cole last night. He feels a cold wash of guilt. 

Rask has his legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, leaning against the back board. Galen stares at him from the doorway. Again he thinks of last night, of Cole, his heart is lead. 

“You can’t just cancel all your appointments,” says Rask. “People were unhappy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And Maise came in worried about her baby. Said the baby wasn’t breathing.”

Galen feels a fresh spike of guilt. “What? I’ll go now. When was this?”

“Don’t bother,” says Rask. “I did it. I dealt with it.”

“You?” says Galen, surprised.

“Yes me. I gave them some of your herb tea,” Rask says, his face tight. 

“Oh.” That’s exactly what Galen would have done. “That’s good. Thank you.”

“Who is he?” says Rask.

“Someone I knew a long time ago,” says Galen, coming over to the bed. He puts his hand on Rask’s hand. “He won’t be back.”

Rask pushes Galen’s hand away. “He looks like me. No, I look like him. That’s right isn’t it? I look like him.”

Galen swallows. The way Rask says that, it sounds like such a betrayal. Like the betrayal that it is. 

Rask pulls his lip into a sneer. “He can’t even fuck you.”

Galen’s eyes go wide. “How much did you hear.”

“Everything,” says Rask. “Including his name. Cole. He’s Red Cole, isn’t he? He’s wanted by the Empire.”

Galen nods, begins, “Rask…”

But Rask isn’t listening. He says, “If I’m a substitute for him then call me his name. Pretend I’m him. Kiss me now and pretend I’m him.”

“No, Rask.”

“He risked a lot coming here, didn’t he? To see you. That’s why he was so frantic for me to wake you up. And it makes sense. The port here is really tight. Full of ships and men from Calisto. If they knew he’d been here, I bet they could find the manifests, work out which ship he left on, find him that way.”

Galen stares at Rask. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Get your clothes off, Galen. I want you to get on the bed. I’m going to do you a favour. I’m going to fuck you while you call me his name. It’s what you want after all. I’m going to give you what he can’t.”

“Rask,” Galen says, nothing else. Just that, let’s it hang.

“Get on the bed,” says Rask again. “Get your clothes off and get up on this bed.”

Galen doesn’t move. He stands where he is, beside the bed Rask is lying on and he says it again, “Rask.”

“Cole,” Rask snarls out. He climbs up onto his knees, facing Galen and touches a finger to his jawline. “Call me Cole.”

“I can’t,” Galen says, he’s shaking.

Rask punches him. It’s not the hardest hit Galen’s ever taken, but it’s a shock. He gasps, jolting back a little. Placing a hand on his face with the blow landed. 

“You will do what I say, Galen.” Rask grabs hold of Galen’s shirt, pulls him down and onto the bed, throws him down on the sheets and swings a leg over him, caging him on his back.

Galen, panting, looks up at Rask.

Rask doesn’t just look like Cole. He’s built like him too. A little taller than Galen and stronger. Easy to muscle. He could overpower Galen and Galen knows it. But Rask has never tried. Rask has never hurt Galen before. Rask is quick tempered, jealous and passionate. But that has never caused him to lash out at Galen with more than spiteful words, until today. 

Galen knows Rask is going to hit him again, just before he does. 

Rask punches Galen twice more. He tastes blood in his mouth on the last hit and then Rask drops and grabs his neck, squeezing a little, not taking Galen’s breath, but showing him how easily he could.

“Say it,” Rask snarls, his face pressing close to Galen’s

“Say what,” Galen manages. “Rask, please.”

“Say his name. Call me his fucking name.”

There are tears in Galen’s eyes. “Cole.”

“Do you like me because I look like him?”

Rask lessens the pressure on Galen’s neck and he says, “Maybe. In part. At the start, yes, for sure. Now, it’s different. It was so long ago.”

“So long. And yet.” Rask leans back and rips open Galen’s thin shirt. “When you saw him, you dropped everything to take him to bed.”

“Yes. I did do that. Yes,” Galen says, Rask shuffles down his body and pulls off Galen’s breeches. Galen doesn’t stop him. He lets Rask strip him naked on the bed. 

There’s rope beside their bed. It’s been there a while. Rask leans and grabs it. When he straightens up he shows Galen what he’s holding and says, “Did you know this was still here? You never rope me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” says Galen. “I want you to be happy, Rask.”

When he says Rask’s name, Rask slaps Galen’s face. “Call me his name,” Rask snaps out.

“Cole,” Galen says, his voice shaking. “I want you to be happy, Cole. Do you want me to rope you now?”

“No,” says Rask. “I want to rope you.”

“Okay,” says Galen, softly. He raises his hands above his head and places them together and lets Rask rope them to the bed board. 

“Does he do this?” Rask says. “Does he rope you?”

Galen shakes his head.

“Do you suck his dick?”

“Once,” says Galen. It all rushes back as he says it. Cole writhing on his bed at The Grey House, drugged and desperate. So beautiful. Galen has to force himself not to roll his hips at just the thought. _Once_ , he hears the echo of his own voice. He’s done that to Cole once.

“Now’s your chance to do it again,” Rask sneers and he shifts up Galen’s body until he straddling his face. “But first, when you suck your true love's dick, do you ask him first? Do you beg him for it?”

Galen’s wrists twitch in the rope. He’s well secured. Rask loves rope and though he prefers to be the one tied down, he takes all sorts in the pillow house, is known for his skills with such things. Rask’s dick is a hair from Galen’s lips. He could press his tongue out flick it over the head, but he knows that isn’t what Rask wants him to do. He knows what Rask wants. 

And although, he really doesn’t want to do this, although it will make him crumble with guilt and loss inside, he is sure, he owes Rask whatever he wants. “Cole,” he whispers, “please, Cole. Let me. Let me suck you.”

Rask smirks down. “Is that all you have for me? Your great love?”

“No.” Galen feels tears pricking his eyes. Rask looks so like Cole. Rask, over him like this, with his dick right in Galen’s face, with Galen, roped, helpless, it’s like something he might have dreamed of doing with Cole one day. “Please. Cole, I need it. I need to taste your dick. I want it so much. I want you in my mouth.”

“That’s right, whore,” sneers Rask. “I suppose I’ll let you, I’ll let you if you get my dick nice and hard so I can fuck you.”

Rask pushes forward, pushes his dick into Galen’s opening mouth. Galen gasps and swallows. Tastes the familiar taste of Rask's dick, but feels Cole. Feels Cole everywhere.

Rask takes him roughly, forces his way in fast and hard. Galen knows how to take a dick in his mouth, of course. Knows every angle, every pace. He knows how to swallow, how to take it deep. But his eyes are watering as he swallows Rask’s hard dick, let’s him force it in, as carelessly deep as he wants.

Galen is hard too. Squirming. Thinking of Cole.

“Gonna fuck you,” Rask is muttering. “Can you feel that? Feel how hard I am. His dick doesn’t do that, does it? Doesn’t get hard for you like mine. He doesn’t want you like I do, does he?”

“Rask,” Galen mumbles around Rask’s dick, and Rask grabs his hair, pulling him forward so he takes it deeper still. 

“Don’t call me that,” Rask grinds out. “Don’t call me that. Call me his name.”

Rask pulls out, hard dick glistening wet with Galen’s spit. He lets it smear over Galen’s face a little as he repositions and moves down. “Do it,” Rask says, eyes lidded with lust.

“Cole,” Galen says through swollen lips, then, “Fuck me, Cole. Please fuck me.” And he believes it. He looks at Rask and he sees Cole. Cole’s bright eyes and dark hair, Cole’s jaw, Cole’s body. Cole’s cruelty. And he means it when he says, “Please, Cole, please. I need you to fuck me. I’ve waited so long. God I need it.”

Rask, smiles darkly and reaches between Galen’s legs, pushing a finger into him. Rask knows well how to open Galen up. His fingers are efficient and quick, but not quick enough for Galen, who moans, “No, Cole, no. Just fuck me. Fuck me. I’ve been waiting so long. I don’t need this. I just need you.”

“You want him so bad,” Rask says with a dark smile. “You want his dick in you so bad.”

“Yes,” Galen sobs. “Yes, please, please. Fuck me. Fuck me.” He lifts his arse off the bed, trying to get Rask’s fingers deeper. 

“And you can’t ever have it can you? You can’t ever have his dick.”

“Rask,” Galen moans. 

Rask pulls his fingers out of Galen and uses that hand to slap his face. “No,” he snaps.

“Cole,” Galen says. “Cole. Fuck me. Do it. Just fucking do it.”

Rask does it. He moves on top of Galen and drives into him. Rask knows just how Galen likes to be fucked, but he doesn’t fuck him like that. He does it harder, more urgently. As if Rask is enjoying this too. Is hot for being like this, being called Cole, making Galen half lose his mind. 

He feels already close when he starts to jerk Galen’s dick fast. Galen yells out for a moment, it's too much and it’s all burn. But his cock is leaking and soon that slick gets spread over Rask’s fists and the burn becomes smooth, intense pleasure. Galen arches. Rask drives into him harder and harder and as Galen comes, Rask comes, and Galen cries out, “Cole, Cole. Oh god.”

Rask falls onto Galen’s chest. Sobbing. 

Galen comes back to himself. Rask is still on top of him. His roped wrists burn. 

“Rask?” he says gently, wondering if the game is over. If he will get another smack for this. But Rask doesn’t move. And he’s still crying. “Rask?” Galen says again.

“I’m sorry,” Rask says into Galen’s chest.

“It’s okay, Rask. It’s okay. Worse has been done me. So much worse.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just. The way you looked at him.” Rask still doesn’t look up.

“I know. I know how I look at him. But he is never coming back. It’s just you and me now.”

“Really?” Rask lifts his tear streaked face. 

“Really.”

“Who is he? Who is he to you?”

“He’s a lot of things.” So, as Rask unties his wrists, Galen tells Rask the whole story. Everything. 

When he explains how he ended up in The Harem, he says, “Didn’t you ever wonder? How I got there?”

“I thought you were taken by pirates. I knew you’d worked ships because of the flogging. I thought pirates must have taken the ship you were on and sold you.” 

“No. It’s a stranger tale than that,” says Galen as he tells the rest. How Cole came to The Grey House. How he’d turned up here last night and how Galen had told him to never return.

“And he really won’t be back.”

“Never. Not ever.”

Rask suddenly looks stricken again. “Galen. Galen, I’m sorry.”

“I know, you said. And I told you, it’s not the worst thing.”

“That’s not it. I don’t mean that. I, I went to the docks today. I was so angry.”

Galen goes cold. “Rask?”

“I told a Calisto ship. I was drunk. I thought you wanted him. I just wanted to be rid of him. I told them Red Cole was here. They asked me how I knew and I said he had been in my husband’s bed. They just laughed. I don’t think they believed me.”

Galen doesn’t speak. He can’t.

“Do you think they’ll go after him? Find which ship he left on. Follow it.”

“I don’t know.” But he knows what Cole has always told him. Why Cole always worried about him, checked he was safe. The Empire use people you care for to get to you. If Rask told an Empire ship Cole was in his bed, they won’t need find his ship. They’ll come for Galen.

He’s barely finished thinking when he hears the noise, a loud knocking on the tavern door. 

There’s no good in ignoring them, no good in running. Galen pulls on his clothes and goes and lets them in. Rask following.

The three men standing in the empty tavern are wearing livery of the Calisto Empire. One, who seems to be their leader steps forward. He is young, perhaps even a little younger than Rask. He has blonde hair and a soft, slightly unfinished look to him. But is mouth is hard when he says, “Are you Galen of Yarran?” There’s something a little familiar about his voice. 

Galen steps forward, steps in front of Rask. “I am. Who are you.”

“I am an agent of the Calisto Empire. And you were the ship’s boy aboard Bright Flame. A ship believed lost with all hands. Lost after it was rumoured that Captain Fry discovered the whereabouts of the fugitive Red Cole on Glass Island, a fugitive long thought dead. And yet, he’s not and nor are you.”

“It’s not a crime to not be dead.”

“No. But do you want to talk crimes, Galen? Because I’ve done my research on you. You are a career whore. How charming. You had a male consort, now deceased, Parim of Pithiya. Died in a street brawl while you were away plying your disgusting trade.”

Galen swallows the lump in his throat. “He was killed by your execution squads.” 

“I expect he was killed by someone who objected to him sucking dicks in an alley. But we digress. Here, I think we can easily find you guilty of whoring and sodomy.”

“I haven’t been back to Calisto since those things were outlawed,” Galen says. 

“That doesn’t matter. You are a subject of the Calisto Empire. It is illegal for Calisto subjects to travel to foreign lands in order to indulge in depravities. And it’s also illegal to lie with enemies of the empire. Where is Red Cole?”

“I don’t know,” says Galen.

“You don’t know where he is, but you take him to your bed.”

“Maybe I did. But I don’t know where he is now. And I don’t care.”

“You don’t care,” says the blonde man. “Really? And how, I wonder, does he feel about you?”


	8. Sapsand Gaol 1

Sapsand Gaol is a surprisingly noisy place. From his cell, Galen can hear groans, sobs, screams and sometimes the laughter of those who have lost their minds here. 

His cell is small and he’s been in there for, he thinks, a week, perhaps more than that. He’s fed rarely and not enough, water is so meagre he’s considered drinking his own piss. Galen thinks, would think, he’d just been left here to die, if he didn’t know exactly what the empire wants from him. He’s bait in a trap. Waiting for that trap to spring. 

There’s a wooden bench in the cell. It’s too narrow and too short to lie on comfortably, but Galen lies on it as best he can and tries to sleep. He’s cold and he’s scared. 

The walls of the cell seem to creep nearer. Galen feels like he’s entombed, sealed inside ancient stone. Although he knows Sapsand Gaol isn’t ancient. It was built, far from any of the Empire’s major cities, in the first decade of Queece’s reign, as a place for his inquisitors to torture prisoners. That fact makes Sapsand Gaol, if anything, more frightening. It’s Queece’s through and through.

The locks scrape and scream when someone comes to open Galen’s door. Galen, heart pounding and mouth dry, struggles up to a sitting position on the narrow bench. This time, it’s not a bowl of gruel. Three men stand in the doorway. He thinks they might be the same three men from the tavern. The blonde in the centre is definitely the same man who arrested him.

As he steps in the room, the blonde man says, “Finally, I get a moment to spend with you. Where is Red Cole?”

Galen isn’t sure if he’s expected to answer this, and he’s distracted, because the other two men, who are much larger than the one speaking, approach him and, one on each arm, pull him roughly to his feet and spin him around, face to the rough stone wall. They slam him into it, carelessness rather than cruelly. He feels the skin over one of his cheekbones break against the stone.

His wrists are pulled behind him and manacled. By the time he’s turned back around to face the room, the blonde man is in front of him. Galen is shoved down onto his knees. 

“I said,” says the blonde man, “where is Red Cole.” And he punches Galen, right where his skin is broken. Galen gasps and heavy hands on his shoulder are all that keep him upright.

“Well?” says the blonde man.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Galen manages. His voice is scratchy from thirst. “Where’s Rask? Where is he?”

“Never mind that,” the blonde man snarls. “I asked you about Red Cole. Where is Red Cole?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him.”

“Don’t you? You don’t know anything about the man you take to your bed? That in itself is a crime under Callisto law.”

Galen looks up. There is still something familiar about the blonde man. His voice. His face too, now Galen sees it from this angle. “I wasn’t in Callisto when Cole was in my bed,” he says.

“Under Calisto law that doesn’t matter.”

“I’ve been informed.” 

The blonde man takes this on and then begins to walk, taking a lazy circle around Galen and the men who hold him in place. “So, a whore. 37 years old. Trained in Luknor, I believe. Of course, we don’t train whores in the Empire any more. Tell me, how old were you when that disgusting place took you from your family and trained you to satisfy men’s base desires with your body.” The man is back in front of Galen now. He looks impatient, ready for an answer.

“I was nine.”

“Nine.” The man pauses. “I see.” He seems troubled for a moment. But Galen has seen that before. People often pause when they find out what age he began his career. But the man seems to regain himself fast and says, “Grotesque. I’m glad to say that vile place was burned down three years ago.”

Galen tries not to show any emotion at that. But perhaps he fails a little because the blonde man says, “I know what you’re thinking. All those skills lost. Perhaps you could show us what you learned there.”

Galen knows the empire well. He may have been gone for years, but he grew up there. Lived under Queece for twenty years. And in the dozen more years since he left, he’s spent a lot of time on The Isle of Stars. A place where Calisto trades with the Northern Lands. A place where he’s heard rumours of the horrors of the empire almost every day. But despite all this, despite the fact he should have known, he is still surprised by what the blonde man is asking of him. He watched what Captain Fry did to Cole on Bright Flame, and he is still surprised by what Captain Fry is asking of him. “What?” he says.

The blonde man bends, takes hold of Galen’s face and squeezes. “Let’s see you do what you’re good for, whore.”

“I’m a healer,” Galen says through his crushed mouth. 

They all laugh at that. Laugh like there’s no way a man like a Galen, a man who was trained as a whore, worked for years as a whore, still takes pleasure clients, would ever be anything else. No matter what. No matter how many fevers he soothes, wounds he cleans or bones he sets. He is a whore. He can never be anything else. 

One of the larger men is in front of him now. The blonde has stepped away. Galen’s face still aches where he was squeezing him. The man in front of him drops his breeches and presents him with a heavy looking erection, damp at the tip and smelling of musk and old piss. 

But this is nothing Galen hasn’t dealt with many times. Nevertheless, although the intention is obvious, Galen does nothing. Just stays there on the ground, wrists chained and stares at the dick in front of his face.

“What’s wrong,” says the blonde man. “Do you need an invitation? Suck it.”

Galen says, “Isn’t that a crime?”

“I think it’s a bit late to start worrying about that, princess,” says the man whose dick is in Galen’s face, grabbing him by the hair and urging him forward. 

Galen’s mouth falls open and he takes the whole thing easily. It’s not like this is a struggle anymore. He’s had much worse than this asked of him. 

“Isn’t that smooth,” says the blonde man in his familiar voice. “He really does know how to do that, doesn’t he? How does it feel, Ebb?”

“Like silk,” says Ebb. “Red Cole’ll come back for this mouth. I’m sure of it.”

“Good, good,” says the blonde man. “Pull back a little. Let’s see how he wants it.”

Ebb’s dick slips from Galen’s lips. Galen gasps.

“Let’s see how much you want it,” the blonde man says. “Come on, you know how to do that, don’t you?”

Galen looks at him briefly, then back to Ebb, with his eyes on him, he presses out his tongue as if desperate for another taste of Ebb’s cock. Above him Ebb gives a satisfying grunt of pleasure at the sight. 

“I like that,” says the blonde man, leaning in closer and pressing a finger to the graze on Galen’s face. “You really do know how to make such depravity look quite pretty. I suppose it’s good to know you didn’t waste your education.” He smiles. “Ebb, jerk it over his face.”

Ebb does as he is told, although he does look a little like he’d prefer to have his dick down Galen’s throat. He jerks himself off over Galen’s face, while Galen gazes up at him, tongue pushed out, ready. When Ebb comes his seed splashes over Galen’s face. 

The blonde makes makes a low amused sound. “You look good like that,” he says. “Very fitting. We could keep you for our amusement if we didn’t have other things to do with you.”

Galen spits on the ground and looks at the blonde man. “You think I’m going to tell you where Cole is, I’m not. I don’t know where he is.”

“Oh, I know you don’t. You think you’re the first associate of Red Cole I’ve tortured? I know he doesn’t tell you anything. But that doesn’t matter, Galen, what matters is, Cole cares about you and because he does, I am going to hurt you. I am going to hurt you in ways you’ve never dreamed.”

Galen says nothing. 

The blonde man turns to his men and says, “Take him to to the room and soften him up until I get there.”

*

Galen is dragged through the noisy chaos of Sapsand Gaol to a larger room. A room full of tools and equipment that make his blood cold. In one corner, irons are heating in a brazier. Galen tries not to think that they might be for him.

He’s thrown onto the ground by the two men, who kick him and punch him, brutally, but also in a uninterested manner. As if beating him is hardly worth their time.

Galen’s not a fighter. Never really learned how. And with his wrists chained, he can’t do much more than lie there and take it. One heavy kick lands in his ribs with a horrible noise and a white spark of pain. He knows it’s a rib breaking. 

The next moment he is being dragged over to a bare wall. His wrists are unlocked and the manacles he wears attached to chains, arms spread above him. It’s a position he’s been in before. Once before.

He turns to look over his shoulder and sees the whip one of the men is unfurling. The other, closer, bares his back, tearing his shirt away. When he takes in what he sees there he says, “So this will not be new for you.”

Galen says nothing. He turns his head to stare at the stone wall before him and he waits.

There’s a whistle as it flies. A whistle that breaks a memory deep inside him. He took a flogging for Cole once, a flogging that he thought might kill him.

He stood up on that deck and offered his life for Cole. For this man that, then, he barely knew. A man who seemed brave and reckless and was beautiful. It was enough. 

Galen screams as the whip hits him, hits him again. 

As the Calisto men take the skin from his back he thinks of how things could have been different. Thinks of another life where, when Captain Volent died, he let Fry pay him off. Didn’t board Bright Flame. Didn’t meet Cole. And he thinks he wouldn’t make that trade if he could. He wouldn’t take the life without Cole. Even now. Even under the whip.

The flogging is harsh, but nothing like the one he suffered on Bright Flame. When it ends, Galen doesn’t know how long it lasted. But there’s someone else in the room. The blonde man, who is saying, “That will do nicely. Ebb, Sur, now put him on the bench.”

Galen, still lost to pain, is unchained, dragged across the room and strapped to a large table, more chains and manacles place his wrists by his sides, his ankles strapped down. His breeches are ripped away. He’s naked.

As he becomes more aware of himself, he feels his back burn, where its strapped, bloody mess and all, down onto the wood of the table.

The blonde man is looking down at him. He swims a little before Galen’s eyes before he comes into focus and says, “Did that hurt?”

Galen tries to speak, but all he manages is a moan.

“You know I’ve barely started. That was just a little warm up.”

Galen tries harder, “The wounds on my back will fester and kill me if you leave me like this,” he says, his voice is rough from screaming.

“What a shame,” says the blonde man. “Tell me,” he touches Galen on the mouth, rubs at his lip. It stings, Galen isn’t sure if it was split in the beating or if he bit it himself when he was flogged. “Tell me, Galen, did you know Red Cole had a wife?”

“What?” Galen doesn’t know how to process that. “What?”

“That’s right,” says the blonde man, still rub rubbing at Galen’s broken lip. “Been married to her over twenty years. Since long before you ever met him. Got two grown sons. Or he did have. I’m not sure if he’d seen them for a while when we found them.”

“No,” Galen mouths out.

“It’s all true. A few months ago, we found where he’d hidden them. You should thank me. The path is clear for you now.”

“They’re all dead?” Galen says dully. He doesn’t know why he’s asking. Of course they are.

“Yes. It took a little time, but yes. He came for them. But he was too late. Do you think he’ll be in time for you?”

Galen shudders. This was a few months ago. He tried to save them but he was too late. That was why he’d come to The Isle of Stars, Galen was sure of it. He hadn’t been hunting for Galen since he found out he’d left the Harem. And he didn’t need to come in person to check Galen was safe. It wasn’t that at all. He knew where Galen was all along, and when his family were killed, he needed to see Galen, to touch him. And he lay next to Galen and asked Galen to tell him about his own family.

And Galen told him to stop. Told him to never see him again.

“He won’t come,” Galen says. “I told him not to come for me.”

“Shame for you,” says the blonde man. And he presses down on Galen’s broken rib.

Galen screams, sees stars. The pain is like nothing he’s felt before. 

The man lessens the pressure enough that Galen can think and speak, but not entirely. “Please, stop, please.” Galen gasps, writhing with pain. “Please. I’ve told you he isn’t coming. And I’ve told you I don’t know where he is. Why do you want to torture me? What have I ever done to you?”

The blonde man shrugs. “What did I ever do to Red Cole?”

“What? What did you…” Galen looks at the man more carefully. He is familiar. Distantly familiar. “Who are you?” he says. 

“Don’t you know? I thought you’d guess. My name is Silas Fry. I believe you met my father.”

Galen stares, can’t speak. Cole’s attack on Captain Fry’s family had been 17 years ago. And Fry’s son had been 9 years old then. He saw it now. In his face. “Oh,” says Galen. “You. Yes, I knew your father.”

“I believe you did,” says Silas. “Tell me, did you lie with him? My father?”

When Galen doesn’t respond quickly, Silas presses down on his broken ribs again. “Yes,” Galen splutters out through the blinding pain. “Yes. Twice.”

“I don’t blame him for that, whore. He was forced to take you. He might as well have use of you.”

“Silas,” says Galen carefully, still gasping with pain. “Please. What was done to you was wrong. So wrong. I know Cole regrets how it happened. He never meant…”

“Oh no,” says Silas. “No, you don’t defend him and what he did. You weren’t there. You do not know what your lover did to me. You weren’t a 9 year old boy tied to chair in the dining room with his mother and his sister. They’d already killed my nanny. They’d killed my dog. And Red Cole sat down at the head of the table, in my father’s chair, put his boots up and asked my mother where her husband was. She spat on the floor and called him traitor, and in return for that, they raped my sister in front of her. And then, they raped me.”

“Silas…” Galen tries, but Silas backhands him before he can say anything.

“You know, whore, when my father used to leave on Empire business he’d say to me, Silas, you are the man of the house now. They made sure I knew I was no man.”

“Cole didn’t want that,” Galen blurts out as fast as he can. “He didn’t. He told me. He regrets it more than anything. When your father tried to rape him to death on Bright Flame, he thought he deserved it because of what happened to you.”

“I don’t care,” says Silas. “Perhaps he does regret it. I hope he does, but I will make him regret it more deeply than he ever thought he could regret anything. I will find every single person he loves and torture them to death and I will make sure he knows how much I hurt them. I almost want him to escape us and live, so he can love again and I can find each of his lovers and break them apart. I will burn you and I will flay you and I will not stop until you are begging for death, Galen. Because that’s what you get for loving Red Cole.”

Galen can’t speak. Silas turns away and grabs a poker from the brazier behind him, spins with it and presses it to the flesh at the top of Galen’s thigh. Galen screams. 

The pain is so overwhelming it takes a while for him to notice the sounds. Beyond the sounds of his own agony, there are running footsteps. The door to the room opens with a bang and the men, Silas’s men, the ones who flogged Galen are there. “We need you, sir,” says one. Galen thinks it is Ebb, the one whose cock he sucked.

“What, why?”

“Trouble outside,” says Ebb. “All hands are called for.”

“Now?” says Silas. “And I was required?”

“Now. You are required,” says the other man. 

Silas looks for a moment like he might defy them, but then says, “Fine. Fine. I can pause this. But lets get him in the cage first. I want him uncomfortable.”

Ebb looks a little concerned at the delay, but the two men dutifully come over and quickly they unchain Galen and he’s moved across the room and shoved roughly into a standing cage in the corner. He’s half crying out with the pain from his back, his ribs, his thigh, and half moaning, the effort of moving overwhelming him. 

“Okay, go,” says Silas to the men. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Silas looks through the bars at Galen as he locks the cage. “I have a few perks around here, whore, you should know. One of them is that only I have the keys to this cage. If anything happens to me, you’ll rot in here. In fact, when I’ve dealt with this interruption, perhaps I’ll leave you here for a few days. No food or water or sleep, then we’ll play again.”

But as Silas turns away the door to the room bangs open again. There are four men there this time. Rebels, armed with swords and daggers, dressed in ragged clothes and improvised armour. Ebb and Sur are still in the doorway, they draw swords in response, and the fight is quick a brutal. The men in the doorway rush the two guards quickly. Outnumbering them. The fight is chaos, Galen is dazed in the cage and isn’t sure where to look. Before he knows it it’s all over. 

Ebb and Sur lie dead on the floor, Silas is gone. Three of the rebels are standing, replacing their weapons. The fourth of the Rebels is on the floor, dark hair over his face, a long cut on his bare upper arm. Slowly he sits up, saying to the three by the door, “Clear the rest of the cells, we don’t have long before the blasts. I’ll unlock Galen and I’ll be there, I’ll be right there.” Then he turns back to look at Galen.

Galen’s heart turns over.

Cole is still panting hard. He’s covered in sweat and blood and bruises. But he grins, grins and says, “Hello Galen.”


	9. Sapsand Gaol 2

Cole gets to his feet and rushes to the cage. He presses his whole body to the bars, as his arms are shoved through and wrap around Galen, pulling him close and murmuring, “Fuck, Galen. Fuck.” Their mouths meet through the lattice of metal. Cole’s tongue is deep in Galen’s mouth. Galen is gasping. For a moment, he doesn’t feel any pain, feels nothing but Cole. 

_Cole_. Who came back for him. Who always comes back in the end. Who’d never abandon him. 

When they break apart, the pain returns. Galen’s mouth is dust dry. His legs are weak as water. His back is on fire. The brand on his thigh feels ice cold, like he’s dead there. “Cole,” he says. That’s all he can say.

Cole has a large bunch of keys in his hand. He’s rattling through them, holding them to the lock on the cage. “Tell me everything in a moment, Galen,” he says. “First, we need to get you out of here. Then I’ll get you to a healer. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine. Just stay alive.”

“How,” Galen murmurs, “how did you find me? How did you know they had me?”

“Your boy,” Cole says, still working his way through the keys. “He got word to Misha. Smart move. And it turned out we had been planning to raid this revolting place anyway. So I just moved it up the schedule. We’ve released all the prisoners, killed every guard that didn’t run and we’ve set the whole place with saltfire. We’re going to destroy every last stone of it. Queece won’t be torturing anyone here for a while. Just need to get you out and…” Cole pauses, he’s got to the end of his keys.

“Cole,” says Galen warily, seeing something terrible. A cloud on the horizon that’s big and black and moving fast.

“Damnit,” says Cole. “I must have missed the right key.”

“Cole,” says Galen. “There’s only one key to this cage. You don’t have it.”

“No, no, Galen. Don’t worry. I have a full set. We took out the lock room first, before we set the saltfire.” Cole grins up at Galen. Grins his _trust me_ grin. 

“Cole. The man who locked me in here,” Galen didn’t say his name, that could wait. “That man has the only key to this cage.”

Cole looks up at Galen. Galen can see it in his eyes. He’s hiding it, but Cole is worried. Cole is seeing the cloud too. “Galen, I… I have _all_ the keys. We had spies in the place for months. They promised us every key was in the lock room. I have all the keys.”

“No,” says Galen, curling his fingers through the bars of the cage to touch Cole’s hand. “You didn’t. He makes his own rules. Cole. He’s, he’s Fry’s son. He’s Silas Fry. He wanted to torture me to death. To hurt you. He locked me in here, I think, to male sure only he could be the one hurting me. He has the only key.” 

Galen watches Cole’s face. He can see him process that information. And not let it land on his soul because, right now, he can’t. He looks at Galen. His face is dusty-pale as his bunch of keys shake in his hand. His voice shakes too. “I don’t have the key here. I can’t get this open. Galen, I can’t. The saltfire is set. It’s already lit. You were the last one. Down here. This is the last place. The gaol will be clear. This was the last part we were emptying out.” Cole’s voice is wobbling. “This cage is chained to the wall. I don’t think I can get you out of it without either the key or a blacksmith.” Cole’s eyes look wet. “The whole place is going to explode, Galen. There’s no time.”

To Galen, the answer is clear. “Get out, Cole. Go. You need to go.”

Cole looks almost angry at that. “I’m not leaving you.”

Galen feels a sickness settle on him. Not now. Not when they’d got so close. “Please. Just go. Please. Just for once, do what I ask you to do.”

“No.” Cole smiles a familiar dark smile. “I’m not going to break the habit of a life time now. I will stay with you Galen. We will both stay here.”

As Cole says that, Galen hears voices. Far in the distance, perhaps on the floor above, voices are calling. “Cole. Red Cole. Are you still here? Cole!”

“He’s here!” Galen yells back. But as he does, Cole lunges forward.

“No,” Cole spits back. Both his hands are through the bars of the cage, on Galen’s face, pressing him hard against the bars at his back and plastered over his mouth. Pain rips through Galen's ruined back. “No,” Cole hisses. “No. You will be quiet Galen.”

Galen bites into Cole’s palm as hard as he can. Hard until he tastes blood. But Cole doesn’t move his hands. He just stares into Galen’s eyes as he holds him in place.

The calling voices grow distant.

When Cole takes his hands off Galen’s face, one of them is covered in blood. Galen’s voice, now he has it, is a sob. “Cole, please. Please go. You’ll die.”

Cole is licking his bloody palm. “I’ll die with you.”

“You’re so stupid,” Galen sobs out as he kicks the inside of the cage with his bare foot. It hurts. “You’re a stupid fucking piece of shit and I hate you.”

“I love you too,” says Cole, reaching his arms through the bars again and holding Galen’s shoulders. “I love you so much Galen. I don’t want to leave this place without you.”

“Fuck you.” Galen kicks the bars again. “Ow,” he says right after.

Cole looks down at where Galen kicked. “This cage is very sturdy.”

“I know. Isn’t that the problem?”

“Perhaps.” Cole narrows his eyes. “Perhaps not.”

Galen stares at him. “Cole?”

Cole’s looking around. Looking at the walls. He walks around behind the cage. Galen shuffles to follow. 

“There’s about 2 feet between the cage and the wall,” Cole says. 

“So. How does that help?”

“It’s a sturdy wall.”

“What?”

Cole is back around the front of the cage. Looking up at the cages that hold it in place. They trail from the top of the cage up to the ceiling. “And there’s slack in those chains.”

“Cole, what are you doing. I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything.”

“I have an idea. This building. It’s not big. Where we are here, it’s underground. There are two floors above us, built from mostly wood and some stone. This part of the building is all stone.”

“What does any of that mean?”

“It means. When the saltfire explodes this building, we might survive it if we have some protection from the falling debris.”

“Protection like what?”

“Like that cage.”

Galen looks around, takes in what Cole is saying. “You mean, the cage might be enough to protect me from the building coming down.”

“I do, yes. The wooden parts will burn, but there’s no wood in here. I think it might work.”

“What about you? I’m in the cage. What about you. We can’t get you in here anymore than we can get you out.”

“No. That’s the hard part. To shelter me, I’m going to have to do something that, with the condition you’re in, is going to be uncomfortable for you. But it will be brief. Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

“Galen. I’m going to tip the cage over. Not right over. Just so it falls back against that wall behind it.”

Galen swallows. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to have to take a run at it. I just need you to hold on, okay? Just hold on tight and I’ll knock it over and it’ll hit that wall behind it.”

“Cole, my back is half laid open. I don’t know if I can stand that.”

Cole presses to the bars of the cage again, presses close and hauls Galen close. He kisses Galen on the lips, tender and soft. “You can. You’ll be fine. Just hold on.”

Galen nods. He grabs the front of the cage, winds his fingers around the bars and holds so tight his knuckles are white. Cole nods and takes several large steps backwards. “Trust me,” Cole says again.

He takes a run at the cage, leaping up just before it and smashing into it with a flying double kick. His feet hit the bars just below where Galen’s fingers are gripping them. There’s an enormous clang and the whole thing sways for a heart stopping moment before it goes. It falls back and hits the wall with another clang, this one rattles Galen’s teeth. But it’s worked. The cage is leaning against the back wall of the room. Galen hurts all over. His back is screaming, but he’s safe, he’s okay. And the way the cage is leaning against the wall has made a tiny space. A secure little shelter. That Cole, limping slightly, curls himself into. 

Cole looks up at Galen through the bars. It’s strangely familiar, oddly nostalgic. “I think this will work. The saltfire is going to ignite any moment now.

Galen pushes his fingers through the bars. “You should have gone,” he says.

“Never,” says Cole. “I’ve left you too many times.”

And before either of them can say anything else the air is ripped apart as several explosions happen at once. After that, for Galen, everything goes dark.


	10. Aboard Bright Flame 4

When Galen is next aware of anything, it’s a voice. The voice shouts, “Here, over here.”

_Cole_. Cole’s voice. There’s more. Other voices. He moves somehow. Shifts. He hurts so much. Cole shouts, “Get a blacksmith here.” And then softer, close to Galen’s face, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

But after that, there’s nothing.

Galen opens his eyes. He thinks he’s dreaming. Is he really where he thinks he is?

He was only ever in this room twice, and so long ago, but he knows it well. The wood. The table. The broad cot he’s lying on. He shifts and realises someone is next to him. A body so familiar, that even before he opens his eyes, he knows. 

“Cole?”

“Galen. How are you?”

“Am I dreaming?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is this… Are we on Bright Flame? Is this Fry’s cabin?”

“Yes. Sorry if that’s strange. I thought it was a safe place to put you.”

“I didn’t know you still had Bright Flame.”

Cole laughs softly. “Of course I do. I fucking earned it.” He leans over and takes one of Galen’s hands in his, entwines their fingers. “How are you? I’ve had all your wounds treated. Your rib is healing and your back. There’s going to be a big scar on your thigh. But you’re mostly whole.”

“I feel… I feel fine. How long have I been sleeping?”

“Almost a week. They gave you laudanum. The healer said it was the best way.”

“I think so. Are you,” Galen curls his fingers tight around Cole’s, “are you staying?”

“We’re in the middle of the ocean, Galen.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. I know. And yes, I’m staying. I’m not leaving you again.”

“Really.” The word is mist in Galen’s mouth. He can’t believe it could be true.

“Galen, I nearly lost you. It made me understand what you said, you were right. If we stay together, maybe they’ll come for us, maybe they won’t, but at least we’ll be together. At least we’ll have something.”

Galen breathes out, feeling like he’s breathing out a breath he’s held for years. “Oh Cole, will you kiss me?”

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Cole, I’ve been ready for that for 12 years.”

Cole laughs as he rolls onto his belly next to Galen, leans over him and kisses him softly on the lips. But Galen is in no mood for soft kisses. He grabs Cole’s hair and pulls him closer, kissing him deep. Cole’s tongue slips into Galen’s mouth and Galen sighs. 

*

Galen is out of bed after a few more days. His mending rib is barely sore at all. Cole insists he spends most of his time resting. “There’s no rush,” says Cole. “Take it slowly.”

“I could get used to this,” says Galen.

Cole, lying next to him, touches his face. “I think you should,” he says.

Galen takes a breath. There’s something. Something he wants to ask. He says, “Silas told me about your wife. About your sons.”

“Yeah,” says Cole. He glances away. “I hadn’t seen them for a long time when it happened. I’m sorry that I never told you about them. They felt like a distant part of me, until the Empire found them.”

“I never thought you’d have a wife.”

“Why?” says Cole. He catches Galen’s eye. “You mean you thought I was sly. No, not at all.”

“I just, the way you look at me.”

“I look at you that way because you are the most perfect thing I ever saw, Galen. That first moment I saw you. Brave little fire filled thing. You had nothing on that ship. The only thing lower than you was me, but you fought for me. You found ways to help me. You were amazing. But I never looked at men that way until I saw you. Indeed the first time I lay with a man was on Bright Flame.”

“What happened to you on Bright Flame wasn’t lying with men,” says Galen. And he means all of it. Even the moment between them in the brig.

“I suppose you’re right. Then the first time I lay with a man was with you in The Harem.”

“You were drugged then. Can you even remember it?”

Cole smiles. “A little. Enough.”

“I’m not sure,” says Galen, pressing a little closer and touching Cole’s chest through his shirt, “that counts either.”

“Well then.” Cole grabs Galen’s hand, lifts it to his lips and kisses his fingers, “the first time was with you, three weeks ago, on the Isle of Stars.”

“Can we even count that?” says Galen. “You only touched me.”

“I see,” says Cole. “Are you saying you want to take my virginity?”

Galen is stroking Cole’s face. “I only want to do what you want to do.”

“Galen, what I want, Galen,” Cole says very softly, darkly, almost a snarl of desire, “I want to fuck you.”

Those words, that low growl, go straight to Galen’s dick. “Oh,” he breathes out. “But can you? I thought you couldn’t.”

“I spoke to Misha about that. She gave me something.”

As Galen watches, wondering what Misha could have possibly given Cole, perhaps some new pleasure drug, one that doesn’t cause as many harsh side effects as black root, Cole lifts something from the floor beside the cot. He shows it to Galen with a shy smile.

It’s a phallus. An ivory dildo. A beautifully carved, milk-white cock, decorated all over with swirls and ridges. When Galen looks at it his mouth dries, thinking of how it will feel to have that exquisite thing pressed into his body.

He can’t speak. He stares at it, his mouth a little open with desire.

Cole says, “I would very much like to see how much pleasure I can give you with this.”

“Cole.”

“If you would like.”

Galen can barely speak. He rolls flat onto his back and his hips jolts as he manages, “Cole, please.”

Cole leans over him with a wicked smile, ivory in his hand, “Are you sure? Are you really sure?”

“Cole. Don’t tease me. Please.”

“Ask me,” says Cole. “Ask for it. Say what you want.”

“Fuck me,” Galen says, all breath. “Please, fuck me.” He feels like he’s never meant anything so much in his life.

Cole lifts the ivory cock to Galen’s mouth. “Show me you want it,” he says darkly.

Galen presses out his tongue and licks the tip of it. Feels the patterns of swirls and ridges on his tongue. He moans, imagining that thing inside him.

Cole sighs at the sight, but swiftly takes the dick away and replaces it with his own tongue, before Galen can even begin to moan at the loss. Cole bears down, kissing Galen deep and slow. While they kiss, Cole fumbles Galen out of his clothes and sheds his own quickly too. He kisses his way down Galen’s body, over his chest, down and around his hips, carefully ignoring his cock which is already hard, up and eager, wet at the tip, and finds his way between Galen’s spread legs to his hole.

“Galen,” Cole whispers, “I would very much like to kiss you here. May I?”

Galen bucks his hips and moans his agreement.

“You are beautiful, Galen,” Cole says. “So beautiful,” and he presses his face between Galen’s legs and licks him gently. Galen moans again, louder this time and tries to push closer. Cole grabs each of his thighs and holds him in place, makes him still, as he licks him again, again and again until Galen is desperate, and his hips are bucking and Galen is rolling on the cot, one arm thrown over his face. Cole slips his tongue inside Galen, slowly, and Galen moans out, “God, Cole, please. Fuck me please.”

And Cole fucks into Galen, first with his tongue and then with the oiled ivory cock. 

He slides it in slow and Galen lets out a loud long sound of need as the cold hard ivory stretches him open. Cole shifts so he’s kneeling up between Galen’s legs and begins to fuck him harder, increasing speed and depth until Galen is thrashing, his own cock weeping onto his belly. When Cole reaches for it with his free hand, Galen says, “No, no. Don’t touch it. I don’t need it. Let me come on your cock, Cole, just on your cock.”

“Okay,” Cole breathes, voice broken with wonder.

Inside Galen’s body the carved ivory finds his pleasure centre and Galen bucks and screams. Cole drags the thing back and forth, over that one sweet spot. “Harder,” Galen pants and Cole, responds, fucking into him so hard the whole cot is jolting. Galen sees stars, moans out and then screams, bucking, clenching down on the ivory and coming and coming over his own chest. 

“Galen, Galen, dear god,” Cole mutters, falling down on the cot next to him. Galen is still lost to pleasure when he realises Cole is jerking himself as he lies next to him. Galen reaches down and wipes up some of his seed with his fingers, pressing it to Cole’s mouth as Cole arches and comes next to him, Galen’s name still on his lips. 

They lie together, breathing hard, for a long time.

*

When they dock at Disran, Rask is there. He lights up to see Galen, looks warily at Cole. But Cole pushes forward, takes Rask’s hand and shakes it. “Thank you,” Cole says, “thank you for sending me to save him.”

“You shouldn’t thank me after what I did. I’m so sorry,” Rask says back, taking Cole’s hand and holding it. He’s looking at Galen while he speaks. “I’m so sorry.”

“Rask,” Galen says, stepping forward and taking him in his arms. 

Softly, Rask says to Galen, “It’s okay. I know you have to be with him.”

Galen has tears in his eyes when he breaks out of the embrace. He holds Rask by the shoulders. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Really,” says Rask. “I always knew you weren’t mine.” He looks at Cole. “I know I look like you.”

“You do,” says Cole. “But you’re only a few years older than my oldest son would have been. That’s who you look like to me.” Cole pauses a moment. Galen knows he’s thinking about his lost family, but he regains himself, pulls back with that cheerful ease. “Where would you like to go, Rask? I’m not sure you should go back to the Isle of Stars. Where can we take you on Bright Flame?”

“I think I’d like to go home,” says Rask. “It’s been so long. “

“Where are you from?” says Galen, realising with a stab of guilt that he’s never asked.

“Bow,” says Rask. Which isn’t the answer Galen expected. Rask seems far too straight forward to come from the distant, cold lands at the foot of the Perpetua Mountains.

“Bow,” says Cole. “Are you magic?”

“Not everyone in Bow can do magic.”

Galen looks at Cole. Asking questions with his eyes. _Would it be safe? Would the empire come for him?_

“If there’s one place in this world the empire avoid, it’s Bow. People say they’re scared of the fairies.” Cole smiles at Rask, who grins right back. “I think that’s a very good idea,” Cole says. And then, he leans close to Galen and says, “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to protect him.” Looking back at Rask he says, “We’ll visit you often, I am sure.”

“I heard, in Bow, the Court Magician is married to the Lord Chancellor,” says Galen.

“Two men can marry in Bow,” says Rask. “It’s a very different place to anywhere here in the south.”

“Then I think we should definitely visit,” says Cole.

*

And the weather has been good, the seas fair. Bright Flame, part of the small fleet of the Thunder Rebellion, sails on.

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends. I hoped you enjoyed this story. I love to hear what readers think about my work so please leave a comment or come and find me on [tumblr](https://mathildia.tumblr.com/).


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